 All good? All right. And our next item is comments and questions from the public not related to the agenda. And if you are attending online, please feel free to just turn on your camera. Or if you're on the phone to simply start speaking, you don't see any. All right, we will continue on. With item number five, announcements and city managers report. And I'll start on my right with Tim. Did you say Tim? Yep. Oh, okay. Councillor Baird. That would be me. So. This conference will now be recorded. So I was able to attend the economic development meeting last week that Andrew Hayes attended from Eastern real estate. And he talked about their commitment to the University Mall and looking to engage with the community about the redevelopment there and what there could be in the future for it. And there's a lot of interest in that property. And we talked about retail, the future of retail, the difference between retail there and in Williston and between downtown Burlington and some safety issues. And it was, I think it was productive session. I was glad to be able to have him there. And I was glad to be able to be there as well. I also attended the Ped Bike Bridge design meeting last Thursday. Thank you for the Chipotle dinner. That was very nice. We appreciate that. And lots of good interaction with the community talking about the aesthetics and the paths and what the bridge, you know, how it should function. And lots of ideas were bounced around. A lot of brainstorming, which was good. I wanna thank the DPW in South Burlington for filling potholes on Dorsey Street that I've been asking for. And so the ride is a lot smoother now. Although some of them are gonna get paved over anyway, right when they end up repaving that. But it's good to fill them as you can. I wanted to talk a second about my trip to Brattleboro on Saturday. So the Brattleboro Union High School had their 45th high school reunion for the class of 77 and class of 78 as well. I've gone down three times in the last 15 years for their every five year reunions. And I was able to meet with two friends that one of them I haven't seen in 49 years. And the other one I hadn't seen in 14 years. And I just wanna stress the importance of keeping connections with people that you know from your childhood because they're the only ones that knew you when you were a child compared to your parents, right? And if your parents are gone, it's important to have people that knew you then because they can give you perspectives that you didn't have. And also they have some memories that you don't have. And it could really crack you up and show you just really a good time. And so we had a nice lunch at the Marina which is on the river right there before it goes into the Connecticut River. The reunion was on the banks of the Connecticut River on the New Hampshire side. It was attended by about a hundred people or so and got to talk to a lot of people and discuss some interesting issues, including pensions, right? And people who are getting ready to retire whether or not they have a pension. And if they do, you know, and it's from the state of Vermont, what's the condition of that pension system? And so it was a really good night. And so I drove down and came back the same day. So that's all I, oh, and one more thing. I reported to Mr. Hor, who's the head of the Public Works in Williston, the fact that once you cross the brand new bridge on Kimballab, which is a great bridge with a great bike pad path, the bikers, when they reached the other side into Williston to reconnect to the street, literally there's a piece of asphalt this long to go from the bike path back onto the road. Otherwise it's all gravel. So he said he would investigate that. Okay. Sounds good. That's all I had. Thank you. Very nice. You're enjoying your summer so far. The last thing is that my car, because of that tailwind on Saturday, you know, 25 miles an hour out of the North, because my car is an electric hybrid and it's low slung and I drove 61 miles an hour, which as you saw on Facebook from the energy committee posting, the slower you drive, the higher your gas mileage. I was able to get 76 miles to the gallon on the way down. I got less coming back because I was going faster because I wanted to get home and, you know, but it is a fact. If you drive your car at 63, it'll do a lot better than 72. So just, I proved it, I think with my car. That's all I have. Thank you. All right, Councilor Coda. Thank you, Councilor. I had no idea you were a Brabville Colonel. I didn't. So here's the kicker. Is that? No, I only, it's my turn, my turn. You've seated your time. I didn't, I didn't walk with them because I left halfway through eighth grade, but I know a lot of the people, but I guess in a heart, I'm sort of a Colonel. Yeah. I also attended the Economic Development Hearing and Meeting, and it was great to hear about how the developer is considering different configurations given the bridge that we may finally get and appreciating that possibility and that potential. Also attended the Committee for the Common Area. Oh, I'm going to screw this up. I'm the liaison. Committee for Common Areas for Dogs. Yes. Oh, that's not cool. In great news, right? We're hopefully going to fix the drainage later in July over at Ferrell Park, fix the fence. That's wonderful. And we're also going to have an opening in Wheeler Park, hopefully in August. So very exciting things happening in that committee from my perspective. Very nice. And our chair online, Helen, really. Okay, thank you. Well, I went to my 50th college reunion and I think as a result, I came home and had a horrible cold, which then turned into COVID. So my last week, a lot of things I couldn't get to. But prior to that, before I was sick, I did attend a BCA training because I missed the earlier one with the new machines. And I have to say, I'm very, very impressed with how they work and how automatic it is and how private it will be for the voter. So I think they're a great improvement. The Climate Action Task Force met. And that's about it. I'm getting better. Thank you. Thank you. Senator Chittenden. First of all, chair, really, I hope you're feeling well. I know it's scary to have COVID. I have four things that I was going to list. I think three of you were with me as well at the Firefighters Promotion Ceremony for Nick Purkov and Brad Detilio. Since our last meeting, great little ceremony. It was great to see both of those individuals get recognized. I did attend the CCRPC annual event and I was happy to see that our representative, Chris Shaw, was elected to be the vice chair of the CCRPC again. So that's great news, I think, for South Burlington and for the entire region. Chris Shaw does a lot of great work for them. I also attended the first meeting of the airport director search that I was appointed to wearing a different hat. And I raised a few concerns about the process. I did share that with you, counselor, really. And I believe that, as of now, they are going to revise the job posting, repost it, and then still invite or still consider the three applicants that were already received, as well as I heard informally that they were going to post an additional forums. Happy to report more on that as I hear it going forward. The last thing, and I've been a barking dog on this for about eight years, but I find repetition often works. I attended a lake monsters game and they have done some phenomenal things to that park. And there were also, it was a lot of empty space. I know money doesn't grow on trees, but I think a great thing to do for all of our volunteers on our committees or and our staff here in South Burlington is to do one of those lake monsters night events. Again, I just think it's really important to recognize, appreciate, have a night out at the ballpark and invite all, we can warn it as a super open meeting, but I just think it would be great to give everybody a night at the ballpark if that's something in the cards. Thanks. Yeah, very nice, very nice. Well, I'll just add on to say that, yes, I think that the promotion ceremony was actually quite moving, brought tears to my eyes. I think that we all know that most of us do not climb up ladders to drag people out of burning buildings. And they do much more than that as well at our firehouse. So it's quite impressive to see of these very committed firefighters and see them promoted as I think very important to recognize their service. I just wanted to also acknowledge that today is the federal holiday of Juneteenth, and I think that as a council, it would be good for us just to think about it, how the city could acknowledge or recognize this holiday, which is a federal holiday. And so it will take some thought, but I think that it is something that is worthy of some discussion. So I just wanted to bring that up and I wanted to say that it's an important moment in our history. We are again, at a time where democracy is being challenged and our commitment to democracy, which is a commitment to equal rights for all, in addition to the institutions and the rules that ensure that our democracy can continue. And democracy is fragile. I tell my students that always. It's something that we have to recommit to every day. And I think that today is one of those days when we should be remembering that this country had a very long birthing process and it's still working towards that more perfect union for equal rights for all. So I just wanted us to have a broader discussion at some point and I feel all are agreeable to that. Great, yes, and the new tabulators, fantastic. I look forward to seeing them in use and I wanna thank Donna Kinville as always, who we'll hear from later, for really spearheading the whole elections process, which is integral, again, to our functioning democracy. And her attention to detail is exceptional. So she is the right woman for the job and I'm very grateful, I know we all are. So with not more do I won't recount all of my pleasant days of the past week, I will turn it over to city manager here, Jesse Baker. Thanks. So I have a few updates for you tonight. I want to give you a heads up that we are working with some of our regional partners on the potential of starting a communications union district in Chinden County. Many of our colleagues across the state have done that as the funding comes in to do the broadband expansion. That's the governmental tool that's being used to receive those grant monies. Originally, Chinden County had been not necessarily discouraged but told that we really didn't need one because of our public sector or our private sector coverage. We now think that for those to run the fiber in the last house, it may be something that's useful. So we are exploring that for the November ballot. It would be multiple towns all at the same time and no, not necessarily any direct financial contribution from us. So just wanted to give you a heads up on that, more to come on that. Want to let you know that our wonderful zoning administrator Delilah Hall is leaving us this week. She moved to Vermont initially to live closer to her husband who lives in Southern Vermont. So she is taking a job down in Southern Vermont to be closer to him. She has been just an amazing part of our team and we'll be very sad to lose her. So if you know of anyone interested in being a zoning administrator, please let us know. Just a reminder that Sun Common will be on site in the next couple of weeks with scaffolding out front to replace the panels and the fixtures on the roof. So City Hall will look a little different for the time being but we are certainly open and ready for business. We have a new Summer Parks Patrol employee, Devonte Jackson. I understand that this is a program that was on hold for a little bit but has been reinstated through the police department. We're bringing young people to help with quality of life issues in our parks. People may remember Mr. Jackson as a Burlington High School graduate. He just finished his first year at UVM and we are intrigued by his interest in becoming a police officer for us someday. He was apparently a very big basketball star so folks may remember him from that. And then finally our meeting schedule is a little different over the next couple of weeks so I just wanted to remind the council that on Wednesday we have our steering committee meeting with the school board. The next meeting will be July 11th which will be our policies and strategies retreat. We will be PDU dinner and making that night a little more retreaty. It will be at the senior center. You'll have materials for that meeting to review by July 1st so we're gonna try and get that to you ahead of time so you have sometimes is a holiday weekend. And then we'll back to our regular scheduled meetings on July 18th. Very nice. Thank you. Just a heads up on this upcoming steering committee meeting I have received a message from a concerned parent who on behalf of parents at Orchard and Central School they are very eager to know what the city is going to do to ensure that their children are in classrooms and not crowded classrooms as we know the enrollments are very high compared to the space at Central and Orchard. So I invited her to communicate back to this group of parents that Wednesday night we're gonna be discussing the impact fee. And so we might have some people in the audience that night so just a heads up for you all to think about that too. All right. All right so we are now to number six which is the Consent Agenda which is our time to consider and sign the disbursements. We pay our bills here in self-growing Tim to receive the May financials. We're coming upon the end of our fiscal year. And the third item is to approve an updated resolution on the public art committee to expand its composition where there will be a quorum of four and three non-voting members. Award of construction contract for Billington Country Club Stormwater Project is the fourth item and that's four or four. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? I move approval as presented. Thank you. Second. Very good. Is there any discussion? Okay just noting the maintenance class of HVAC was pretty high. I just was struck by that as well as vehicle maintenance. Those were the two big ticket items that got over 200%. So I don't know if there's any. Yeah so part of the reason for that is this building that was forecasted out well before we moved in. We've also gotten some different opinions around how often we change our filters. And so we went from doing it once a year to what's recommended of doing it twice a year. So that's one of the reasons. The price of filters has also gone up. And there's also some lines related to 575 Dorset Street, 577 Dorset Street that we will receive a reimbursement from. So that will balance out some of those costs. Great. I did see that fueling costs really were not 104% or something or 108% maybe something like that. So that was. We'll still be over budget but. Yeah but not, okay. Very good. We are then gonna ask if everybody is an approval. So all in favor of the consent agenda. Hi. Hi. I didn't hear any opposed. I hear all unanimously passed the consent agenda. So number seven. And now we're gonna hear from our city clerk, Donna Kinville. She would like us to consider approving the mailing of ballots to all active non-challenged voters for the November election. So Donna. Hello. Hello. Thank you for allowing me to come tonight. As you know in the past on the November elections, the state has allowed us to put our Justices of the Peace, which is a local item, as well as any other ballot item the city had to be placed on their ballot at no cost to the city. And so it made it nice and neat. And then just this last session or the end of last, there was a bill passed called S15, which allowed Secretary of State's office to mail a ballot to every active non-challenged voter in the state of Vermont. And therefore in order for us to continue to put our JPs and local items, ballot items on the ballots, it requires a vote of this council authorizing the mailing of ballots to all active non-challenged voters for the November 9th, 2022 election. This will greatly reduce our cost of having to create a separate ballot. And then it comes the question of confusion for the voters because they're gonna get a ballot from the state, but then they may get a local ballot from us, but only those people that requested it. So it makes a lot of sense to make sure we jump on to the state, that state ballot. Definitely will be cost savings to the city. So it'll be all in one sheet, front and back. Typically they put our questions on the back side of the ballot. I'll make that motion now if you'd like. Please do. So I move that the city council authorize the mailing of ballots to all active, non-challenged voters for the November 9th. 8th? 9th? 8th, I'm sorry. I'm thinking of August, November 8th, 2022 election. Sorry. Second. Very good, very good. Yeah, I have a question. Yes, please, Helen. So Donna, what will happen this year is the justices of the piece will go on. If we have, let's say we have an item, a bonding item or something, can that be added also at no cost? Yes, they can. There is a due date of mid-August, I believe, that the state needs to get it to them so they can place the wording on the ballot. Yes, so council. Mid-August for the November ballot, wow. Because they have to print out for the whole state and then they mail them out the end of September. So they come out from up here. Is this an annual event? I mean, have they decided to do it every year and we need to pass this kind of resolution annually or does it depend on what they do? So be by annually, so because justices of the piece are a local item, but they're every November, every other November and the even years. So this would become a common resolution that will be asking the council to pass every two years. Okay, thank you. Because we'll be doing this kind of balloting every two years now? Right, so the November ballot is in every even number year as well as that's when the justices of the piece are elected as well. Is this a state law? Yep. Okay, very good to know for the voters too. Any other discussion? All right, all those in favor? All right. All right. That passed unanimously too. So I will let the secretary of state's office know so they'll pencil us in and make sure they know is going on and they will keep us in touch. Thank you very much, Donna. All right, and you stay right where you are because we are receiving the warrant for unlicensed dogs and caps and we need to discuss enforcement. Yes, so this is a requirement that I present to the council every year after March, after, excuse me, after May 30th, the list of all unlicensed animals in the city, which in that case in South Burlington is dogs and cats. So before you is a list of dogs and cats that are not registered as of last Thursday, I believe. And it's up to the, we've done everything on our end that we kind of can do. We've advertised on front porch forum. We send out emails, we posted in the other paper. We've done everything we can to try and reach these residents. So it is my duty to report it to the council the list and then it is the council's decision what they want to do with it. In the past, we have had the police department send out a letter to all these unlicensed dogs and cats and let them know that it is amazing the results you get when someone gets a letter from the police department. So we actually had, after we did it last August, which is a little bit late because of COVID so everything got kind of backed up, we had 326 total last year that weren't registered and we had over 100 were new that were not registered before. So we got a good chunk of them that finally did come forth and register their pets. Yes, please, Matt. And for those that didn't, the pet could have died or people could have moved away, right? Is that the other alternative? They could have or they could just not register their dog or cat, any of the above. So last year you said that you had the police department send out message notes, right? And has that happened yet? No, because I don't have that authority to do that. That's why I'm reporting to you. Oh, that's one thing that we could ask you to do. We actually end up sending the letter out on behalf of the police department, but yeah. But the letterhead, isn't that what you did last year in the letterhead? The police department authorized Officer Burke, Burke authorized the letter last year approved of it, so. So that yielded pretty well? Yeah. I'd like to try that again if we could. Yeah. That's what you're asking, right? Yeah, I think that makes sense. Does it make sense to all of us? Just to be clear, this is exactly what we did last year. We're just sending the letter. We're not doing anything more with regards to tracking these dogs and cats down. Correct. Great. Council, you said if they want to move further than that. So this warrant that's in our packet, we can leave untouched. Correct. Okay. Any other questions or comments? Helen, do you have any? No. Do we need a motion or are we? I think we need a motion to authorize our city clerk to contact the police department. I would make that motion for. I'd second that. Also. To send out these notices. Negative before I get to the end of the sentence. I just have to say there are pages and pages and pages of names here and I didn't count because it was, but many people and we hope to hear back from some of them. All right. We have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. That again is unanimous. All right. Very good. All right. We see some people in the audience. We're a little bit early. 20 more minutes till time on our agenda should. We can start. We start. Thank you, Donna. Excellent. Thank you. Can I say two things about interviews before we start? Of course. So two things, one for the council, one for community members. So for the council, you have a spreadsheet of all of the 41 folks who have applied with a little tickler column. If you would like to keep notes for yourself over the course of the conversation. Second is to those who are applying to be on committees. We will be, the council will be meeting an executive session tonight and making determinations. We will be sending you a letter this week about their decisions and then they will be ratifying the list of appointments at their July 11th council meeting. So we will not, you don't need to stick around tonight late into the evening to find out. We will be contacting you this week. And with that, Councilor Emery, go for it. All right. Very good. So you'll have to help me along here. First on our list is affordable housing. And we have Tom Getz, Sandra Dooley and Emily Holt-Gaslin. I don't know if they are online or not. So Tom Getz appears to be online. And... Andra Dooley and Emily Holt-Gaslin. Sandy Dooley is not yet. And Emily is, Emily is. So Emily and Tom Getz, if you want to turn your cameras on. Very good. Thank you. All right. We're welcome. We're glad to see you online and appreciate, as always, the number of people who apply for our committees. I believe that it's truly of benefit to our city. So I am just gonna find my page here. Okay, there we go. All right. So Mr. Getz, we'll start with you since you're at the head of our list. And if you could just tell us in a few sentences, feel free to expand if you'd like to about your reasons for applying for the affordable housing committee. Hi. Thank you for having me on tonight. Yeah, I said my name's Tom Getz. I've been a South Burlington resident for about seven years now. And I am interested in joining the affordable housing committee just to try to give back a little bit in an area that I have a lot of experience professionally. I first got experience working with the affordable housing committee really in depth over the past year. My company Summit Properties has a 94 unit affordable housing development that is moving forward in South Burlington and in working with the committee and city council sort of going through the long process of all the permitting and financing aspects. I got to know some folks on the committee. Well, and it seemed like a great opportunity to potentially give back in some of the areas that I really have experienced, which is our company Summit Properties. We are developers and managers of affordable housing in Vermont, New Hampshire, upstate New York, but we're South Burlington based and CEO, I lead all the new development of affordable housing opportunities for our company. And so I've had a great opportunity not just in South Burlington, but in cities around New England, mostly Vermont, New Hampshire to see how the affordable housing development process works in different cities and really kind of understand the challenges between the permitting, financing, construction and operations, because we also manage about 1500 departments across those three states. So I have seen it all and hope that my perspective can add some different, well, perspective to the committee. So happy to answer any questions. Great, great. Any questions from my colleagues here? It's clearly qualified and experienced. Yeah, Matt. Last time we saw you, Tom, was we signed a letter helping you get a grant? Can you give us a status update on that process? Yes, so this is for the O'Brien Farm community. I mentioned it briefly a bit ago. This is 90, 40 units of mixed income housing at the hillside at O'Brien Farm community. It was, I think, it may have been January the last time. Oh no, it was a little, we've been before the city council a couple of times on this, but at this point, we have received all of the very large funding resources. This is over a $25 million development and we've received an allocation of tax credits from the Vermont Housing Finance Agency that it's gonna bring about 13 million of equity to the project. We've received an ARPA award of about 4.8 million from the Vermont Housing Conservation Board and we're still waiting on our CDBG, our million dollar block grant application. So financing has all come along those major very competitive resources have all been either awarded or expected to be soon and our goal is to be in the ground this fall. Costs are rapidly rising and have continued. So the next two months we're in the process. Now that we've gotten our major awards, we're in the process of finalizing the construction bids and that's gonna tell us whether with all of the resources we've been allocated with interest rates where they are, whether we've made it or we have a gap and need to fill that gap with an additional source. So we're hoping that we can make it work, but it is a wild environment right now to be putting together any sort of budgets. So this project will go. The question is only whether it's gonna happen this fall or whether more resources will be necessary and it needs to push back a few months. Good, thank you, Tom. Any other questions for Mr. Begetz? Thank you. All right, Helen, yes. Can you conceive of a situation where your service on the Affordable Housing Committee would constitute a conflict of interest since your company builds affordable housing and how would you handle that? Yeah, I could see that. I mean, I know like Patrick O'Brien is on the committee and not exclusively affordable housing, but as a developer, I would see that I would recuse myself if the committee was being asked to weigh in on a specific project. I don't think that it would be probably appropriate for me to give a thumbs up or thumbs down to another developer, but I think on policy and in conversation issues, that's where I can add a lot of value, but I probably would not weigh in on the merits of a specific project, at least in a half of the committee. Thank you. I have a question. Yes, please. Tom, have you attended any of their meetings before? I have, yeah, I've attended, I believe, three of their meetings as a presenter for this project, so for the South Burlington O'Brien Farm project. And so you know approximately what time of day they meet and that doesn't conflict with your schedule unless you're supposed to talk to them about your project. Right, yeah, no, that works for me. Yeah, yeah, I'm pretty flexible with the schedule. There you go. Okay, all right, well thank you very much. And you can hang on or you can feel free to enjoy this pleasant evening. Thanks so much, I appreciate it all. Thank you. All right, and since we're online, I'll continue with Emily, Emily Holt-Gaslin, and thank you too for applying, and you are applying to two committees, the Forbill Housing Committee and the Energy Committee. Is that still the case? Yes. All right, so if you could perhaps speak to both and we will kind of parse through and just the question, what led you to apply to these two committees? Absolutely, so excited to be here. Definitely a little intimidated, but I've lived in South Burlington for probably like 17 years at this point, and I'm really at the point where I want to just become a little more involved within my community especially. I think probably like a lot of people, I've had a big feeling of like, am I doing enough? How can I get more involved? So I learned about the committee through the front porch forum or like saw the openings through the front porch forum and thought that that would be just a really amazing way to get involved, particularly as someone who can't really afford to buy a house in my own community where like my parents live and siblings live, and in terms of energy efficiency, knowing that that is a really important thing to be focusing on particularly during the next 10-ish years or so. So just generally really interested in either committee. I don't have a lot of experience with this sort of stuff, but I feel like it's also one of those things where I'm like, how do I get the experience without doing the thing if I'm not qualified to do the thing? So a little ambitious here, but I'm really excited about these sort of things. I even just hearing from Tom so far, it's really cool to potentially be surrounded by people who have been doing this for a while and the potential to learn from you all. And I have every intention of hopefully staying in Vermont for a long time, specifically South Burlington. So I'd love to get involved sooner than later. And I think that's kind of all I got. So what question? Yeah, what role do you typically play on a committee structure if you've served in a committee structure? You do have serve experience serving as a chairperson for your local recovery group. You've taken minutes. You've coordinated with subcommittees, all kinds of unexpected bumps in the road that you've had to navigate. So beyond minute taking, what do you see in terms of your strengths that you would bring to that kind of discussion, which can get technical too, but it doesn't always take technical expertise. You can also take, you know, big picture kind of people. Absolutely. Yeah, thank you for that. The technical aspects, I'm sure, I could brush up on a little bit. Again, I'm really eager to learn more about this. I've reached out to a couple of people who have been really supportive in, like offering me a connection to the previous minutes and other people who have been involved in affordable housing committees specifically. I definitely would say I have a bigger picture kind of perspective. A lot of the work that I do personally is from an intersectional lens as well. And as I mentioned, also like a community aspect, I really deeply believe like it is up to us communities to look out for one another and offer mutual support where we can. So a lot of my interest kind of stems from that of wanting to determine, I guess, specifically in terms of different projects or think that the Housing Committee or the Energy Committee would want to focus on and seeing that from like a larger lens, if only because I have more to learn about like the nitty-gritty aspects of it. Very good. Other questions? Hi, Emily, this is Tim. Can you relate to us roughly some of your challenges you've had with finding housing in South Burlington or since you came to Vermont? Yeah, so my family moved here when I was, how old was I? I don't know, seventh grade or so. And we've had to rent houses consecutively for up until I think last year, actually. So it's been many, many years where my parents struggled to find something affordable that would accommodate. I have a big family, which since then many of my siblings have moved off, but particularly just being able to find somewhere that was under half a million dollars was a huge challenge. And so I have a lot of personal connection with that of seeing my parents who have two pretty stable, good jobs, most people would say, and still having a lot of trouble finding something in South Burlington especially. We've been here for so long and wanted to stay here. I went to school here, if it means it as well. And so just seeing the financial struggle aspect and then wanting to do the best and all of that was really just hard to witness as a child. And then personally as well, I still live with them. So that's the reality of like many people my age too, which is something that I've done a lot of personal work on like accepting that and also feeling really grateful for that opportunity too, but realizing so many of my friends, people around my age are simply unable to find housing at all. I have a couple of friends who are couchsurfing or living in their car right now. And so I think it's very apparent that it is a pervasive issue with it, not just South Burlington, but the place. And if I could potentially help to contribute some sort of improvement in that area, it would be really meaningful for me. So. Thank you. Anything else? You got applause in the audience. Anybody else like to ask? All right, thank you so much, Emily. I'm really glad that you applied. And I agree that people of your generation, it's time for you to have platform and really, you know, that voice we need to hear from you. So thank you. Are we gonna hear about her interest in the energy committee as well? She said that she, we could certainly hear more but she did talk about her interest in sustainable energy. But go ahead. You can, if you have more to add about that, Emily. I don't. Again, it's something, I mean, to be like totally transparent, I don't have a wealth of knowledge about that sort of stuff. Again, it's something that I know is very important and I mean, of course I have like rudimentary understanding of the importance of energy conservation and making things for more sustainable long term. But in general, a little selfishly, again, I feel like it would just be really amazing to be working with people who have a lot of this knowledge, who I can learn from and then like implement that information. Like I said, I'm a pretty quick winner and like to soak up that kind of stuff. But I am definitely a little more involved and interested in the affordable housing committee. So that's your first choice. All right, thank you. Thank you. And Emily, I just want to say that people have a lot to learn from you and your perspective. And when you talk about the importance of mutual support, I think that that is a cultural value that needs to be put at the forefront. So I think you would bring a lot to either of the committee. So I just, I want you to feel that you are not coming here empty-handed for the city. All right. Appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you. All right, Sandy Dooley, if you would come to the podium, I feel free to remove your mask if you're more comfortable speaking without it. So this is again for the affordable housing committee. Bright green. Ah, got it. Before I start, I just want to say that I spent most of the afternoon watching the June 6th meeting. And I'm just thrilled with all the applicants. Yeah, it's amazing. I hope you have positions for all of them. Even having someone apply who hasn't quite moved here yet was something new, at least to me. As I indicated on my application, similar to John Simpson, I've been involved in the city's work on affordable housing since 2012, when the city council created a task force on affordable housing and we produced the path to affordability report. Then there were ad hoc groups that worked on the inclusionary zoning for city center and establishment of a housing trust fund. I've been vice chair and secretary of the affordable housing committee since 2016. Last year we got three new members and we have, so we have three sort of long termers and then we had three new last year and I think it was four new to year before. So we're a real mixture of mostly people that have two years or less and then us people that have some institutional memory. And then we just learned that Manel Sarfuadu who has been our trailblazing student member is not applying for reappointment but we celebrated her last week and Patrick O'Brien is in the process of resigning. So we're gonna have some more new members. I think we work great together and it's been great to have new voices and perspectives. The, in terms of why I wanna continue, I really would like to follow through on the RFP for the $1 million. We've been working, last week we sort of finalized what we're sending to you folks for that year retreat for the policy priorities and strategies for FY23 and they involve incentivizing density, trying to find ways to incentivize and sort of find ways in which our rules make development more costly and change those if they seem amenable. Two, of course, would have to go through the planning commission, promoting redevelopment. We wanna contribute to the updating of the comprehensive plan. And one thing I learned about watching the interviews was that there's a million dollars in the House, in the legislative bill. John Kalaki talked about this for one single community to work on developing, I guess, maybe new or innovative housing opportunities. I guess John and Tom Thomas and Jesse are working on that, but I'm sure that your affordable housing committee would be happy to assist in that if that seemed helpful. So thank you for all you do and thank you for considering my application and I'm open for questions. You come with a wealth of experience and expertise to Sandy. So thank you for your willingness to continue because we know you so well, you might not be peppered with questions, but I will turn left and right in front of me to see if there are any questions for Sandy. I just have a question actually for Jesse. With the two retirees, if you will, or resignations that Sandy referenced, does that, is that included in the needed number of four or is it really six? It is included. So the three open spaces included, Monell's and the one year remaining is Patrick's. We've added that since your last meeting when we received news of his resignation. Okay, thank you. All right, well, thank you very much and have a, again, take advantage of the sunshine unless you wish to stay with us and you're welcome to do that as well. Very good. So that concludes our interviews for the affordable housing committee. Next committee is the Bicycle and Pedestrian Committee and we should have three people here tonight for that. Anne, Ellen Mason, Sean Soper and Doug Goodman. And so, all right. Yes, it's Doug. Sean is a Williston firefighter and may not be able to join us tonight. But Doug Goodman and Anne Mason, if you can both turn your cameras on. Greetings. Let's do it for Doug. All right, well, Anne's turning on her camera. Doug, if that's all right, we'll proceed with you and thank you so much for applying for the bike and pedestrian committee. And please tell us a little bit about why you have applied, what led you to do so. Thank you for the opportunity to come and present this evening. I'm a pretty active bicyclist and I've been involved over the last year a little bit more with local bicycle policy. I was involved with the Austin Drive Queen City Park Scoping Study with the CCRPC and I was on that committee with Tim Barrett and we're trying to raise issues of the best way to sort of access this corner of South Burlington and into Burlington. I live in Queen City Park so part of my interest is representing my neighborhood in access issues with bikes and pedestrians and I've also been a little bit involved with the advisory lanes on Queen City Park Road. So I think my interest is really in looking at the things that are being worked on with trying to create bicycle and pedestrian connectivity between South Burlington and the bigger region and trying to work with helping to sort of find some direction in that and one of the previous people spoke about their strengths on a committee and I think in this situation I'd say my own strength is I'm pretty good at doing a deep dive into research and looking at the way things connect and trying to get a good understanding of I think policy and the way, and when I say policy, I mean what's appropriate and how, for example, the MUDCUD relates to placing bike infrastructure on the roadways and one thing I was at the meeting last week where they were talking about vision in the bike pedestrian bridge over 89 and I thought that was a really interesting session but there were a lot of questions that were raised by a number of people and I was really interested in some of that and the process of how it is I guess working towards the materialization of that project. Yeah, it's gonna be I think a really good project and it will bring a lot, I believe, of connectivity that I think you spoke to and in your narrative of while you talk about commuting in addition to recreational cycling so I think that that is something that I would hope to see and that the bike and ped bridge over I-89 would help accomplish. Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Goodman? I do have one. Yes, Councilor Chitman. As an avid bicyclist, I'm curious, I personally am seeing more and more class one and class two e-bikes zooming around town. Do you have any thoughts on which is great? My daughter has one and it's fabulous but as you're using the paths do you have any thoughts on how friendly or how do we need new signage? Are there anything that comes to mind as you're seeing these e-bikes zooming up hills and otherwise? I think they're a fabulous device for getting people outside but the challenge to me as a longtime bicyclist is there's a lot of people who are, well frankly, pretty dangerous. There's a lot of people who are going really fast on them and they don't have a sense of their impact on the rest of the road users. And I wanna say vulnerable road users because when you talk about cars relating to bikes and pedestrians, the bikes and pedestrians are vulnerable road users and an e-bike is a vulnerable road user but sort of in almost a gray area because they're sort of between a motorcycle and a bicycle and I think that people don't really have a sense of their personal risk. The number of people you see like today we were biking up the trail in Burlington, the number of people on e-bikes that weren't wearing helmets and they're going 20 or 25 miles an hour. So I think when you mentioned signage I find that really difficult because I was bicycling in New York City last week and there's people on a wide range of e, I wanna say devices because some of them look like vespers that are moving pretty quickly but they're using the bike paths that are specifically stined for no electric vehicles. So it's a big challenge. I didn't really answer the question but there's a lot there. Yeah, thank you. Any other questions for Mr. Goodman? Felon, do you have any questions for Mr. Goodman? I just remind me, have you been to any of the committee meetings? I've been to one or two meetings and I was also at the meeting where they're talking about the connection on Spear Street between Swift and the bike path by the Department of Agriculture and that. So I've been to a couple and I'm, yes. So you're aware of when they meet and that time commitment is something you're able to make? Yes, I'll do that. And I appreciate, I just got an e-bike and I appreciate your comments on how it is sort of a different experience and maybe it's not signage, maybe it's just education of everyone about how it really is kind of different. Yeah. Very good. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. And I don't know if you were here originally but our city manager said that there would be a discussion and potentially decision tonight but it will be well into the late evening hour and so that would be communicated, our decision would be communicated to all the applicants within the next one or two weeks. Yeah. So thank you so much for applying. Much appreciated. Thank you very much. Yeah. And next is Ann Ellen Mason. She is online. Where? I can see her, I thought she was. Hi. I hear you. Can you guys hear me? I know, I don't see my name up on the, on the... It's just showing the active cameras. There you are. Oh, yeah. Thank you. There you are. Sorry about that, I just hopped out of the shower. But you can see me. Well, you see us in all our glory too. I have to say that I am... Yes. We don't... Hello. Nice to meet you. Thank you for your interest. And we are eager to hear about what led you to apply to the bike and bike committee. So interesting, I was just listening to Doug. I just am a new e-bike purchaser. I've been a cyclist and I wanna make sure I phrase that right. Kind of a casual cyclist for several years now. I'm not a racer or anything like that, but certainly I've covered all of Burlington and or in the local areas. I've also had the great gift and luxury of traveling a lot overseas lately, doing bike trips. I've been to Portugal and Holland and Germany. And just kind of hoping to bring to the table some of that experience of... And a couple of those trips were on e-bikes and a couple of them were just on regular bikes. And my desire to join this committee and to be proactive in this environment is to contribute some of that knowledge I've brought with me back from overseas and all that I've experienced on proper bike trails and countries more conditioned to using bicycle as a mode of transportation. So as I said, I just bought an e-bike. I had a knee replacement last year and I just thought that I would prefer to upgrade to an e-bike. And I can't express... You have a helmet too? Oh yeah, I don't buy a bike without a helmet. No, and that leads me to another thing. So I can't express the ease and the comfort and the amount of miles I've covered with the e-bike already and I just had it a few like a little over a month now but everything from going to the grocery store to going to appointments to I'm trying to write it unless I have to bring somebody else in my car like for my work. So I'd love to spread that joy of commuting on my e-bike and utilizing the roads around here for safe bike travel. So really that's my main interest is safe bike travel and the more safe we get possibly the more people will get biking for not just exercise and for fun but for a means of transportation. So, and yes, I'm a die hard bike helmet user and I know Doug was mentioning that sometimes he sees people that bike helmets on e-bikes or whatever but as frustrating as it is I've seen people without helmets in all sorts of different scenarios and often I see something that's very troubling to me is I see bicyclist parents biking with their small children their children have their helmets on and the adults don't and that's always something I want to kind of stop and say it's just weird role models for our children and bike safety and I really encourage people to wear their bike helmet. I just, it's like wearing a seatbelt to me I can't get on a bike without a helmet on thankfully my children have said my adult children have said the same so anyway that's my goal is to help and encourage bike safety bike routes for all sorts of not just recreation but for commuting and getting away from use of cars and it's really pleasurable on my e-bike I can do it really well so. Great, yeah so it's not just recreational cause going to the grocery store is a very practical use of the bike. Exactly, yeah. Exactly and that can be done on e-bikes or not anything but just again my European travel I've seen roads that really accommodate bikers and I was just actually in Denver visiting my daughter and they had a beautiful bike lane that was very well established and very well marked and I know that's not always easy with the spacing in our roads and all that but I really feel like the safer the roads I have a lot of friends that'll say might say oh I won't go down that road cause it's so unsafe or the cars go by so fast or and I'd love to be part of and committee or organization that helps kind of figure out ways to get our roads safer especially in Vermont for bike travel. Yeah and coming from Laurel Hill to get to the grocery store you're crossing route seven so you know just like Mr. Goodman, Doug Goodman who's in Queen City Park you are very familiar with that it's a harrowing road to navigate as a cyclist. Yes and even to get to the bike path I have to cross at that main intersection and it's very nerve wracking. I have never had an altercation thank goodness but I can see why people who are not as friendly with bike use might get much more nervous and just disregard bike use for commuting or travel or recreation or all of that above unless we have safer roads and systems in place. Councillor Barrett has a question for you Anne. Hi Anne, this is Tim. Are you one of those really bad e-bike gang of people that rides 30 miles an hour on the bike path? I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. So here's the question, are you finding that people your age are engaging in e-bikes with greater frequency like your friends are having greater interest in buying them because it enables them to bike farther and longer and do things they couldn't do before because I've noticed that with some of the bikes like the rad wagon for example you can put two little kids on the back and the parents are ferrying them to daycare or to school but there's also a large older population that's getting back into biking that couldn't bike before because of knee problems or other joint problems and the addition of the electric motor just makes it easier. So there's another whole population that's getting back into biking and I think that the e-bike is gonna be predominant in a lot of ways on all of our paths and on our streets as well. So it's an important perspective to have for this new segment. It used to be a niche, now it's growing into a whole new market segment for biking. Well, I mean, I think you hit on several topics where knee replacement last year, gas prices, there's a lot driving certainly myself who loves to travel by bike to moving towards buying an e-bike for better or for worse, the cost might be a problem for some people because they are not inexpensive. Neither are higher end road bikes but not everybody drives those either. So people kind of run in the middle of a, just around town bike I've got all of the above but I think that, again, my point being here is I think that what I would like to see is just kind of continue to spread the word about e-bikes and they're not electric, they are just battery assisted. So you're still pedaling, you're still, I don't know if anyone has used them or how much but you're still really working but you have that kind of assist, especially up the big hills and in Vermont, that's a game changer for me because now I can literally go anywhere. So I do have friends in my biking buddies, my friends that use have an e-bike but a lot of them, it's a little bit more of a cost issue but when we weigh the prices of $5 a gallon versus riding an e-bike and having, so you just get so much out of it, you get, even if it's not an e-bike, but you get, even if it's a bike, you get exercise, you get, you save gas, you're motivated, you're moving, you're staying healthy. So again, leads me to really be part of this committee and encourage safe biking and pedestrian routes for South Burlington, Burlington, you know, all around because I really, I really believe that we need to go in that direction, sorry. Goodness. Can I anticipate Helen's question and ask if you are aware of the meeting times and the time commitment altogether? So the meeting times I believe once a month, did I read that right? I believe so. Yeah, once a month and I can't recall the times right now at the top of my head but I do know it's once a month. You familiarized yourself, have you attended any of their meetings? Yes, I have not yet, no. Okay, no, not yet, let's see. I have a question, you mentioned a couple of times that you know, you're really interested and you think that kind of education is needed and outreach and I'm curious, do you have any particular work experiences or I don't know, abilities that would lend itself to coming up with some ideas about that? I mean, I think, go ahead. Yeah, my work history is in healthcare. I was at the hospital for 23 years as a medical assistant and currently I have a business with working with elderly people, so to answer your question, no, I do not to have that type of experience but I consider myself and I keep reiterating the European travel and really taking in all of what they've done in their infrastructure to create safe bike travel and stuff is something that I was hoping to bring to the table and help kind of think tank safe routes and encouragements in education and the population. One last question, it is the pedestrian and bike path. Yes, yes. So do you have some thoughts about the pedestrian part of it or is your focus, I mean, are you a walker or are you a viker and that's really where your experience and thinking lies? Yeah, I mean, I am certainly both. I've always been both. I lived downtown in Burlington for some many 13 years and use the bike path and the walking path that way and now I'm in South Burlington and I have access to the bike path around Laurel Hill and stuff. So I certainly do am a pedestrian and I think in my mind I think more about the biking piece but creating a symbiotic relationship between the pedestrians and the biking which I experienced a lot on the bike path which is you have the pedestrians and then you have the bikers. So kind of coming up and thinking ideas to keep the pedestrians safe and the bikers safe and keep the speeddowns and the e-bikes and stuff. So, and to also answer your question any sort of commuting that doesn't have to rely on a petrol vehicle is something that I'm very interested in. So whether it's pedestrian and walking or whether it's cycling, keeping all of that safe and trying to move away from, you know, vehicle use if you can. And I, you know, I have a vehicle and I ride a vehicle when I need to of course but just really like to create our community and move away from some of that and educate people on walking or biking. Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. And I think that those are all the questions and thank you very much for answering them so well. Great, thank you. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your time and your willingness to take on more. Thank you. Very good. So next we have our city charter committee and Donna Kinville is here. She is our sole applicant and I'll be the liaison. That is my original city committee. So I'm excited. I just make sure that Sean Soper is not here. Oh, yes, I meant to ask you that. There is somebody who is called in online so we don't know who you are. Can you identify yourself so we can call on you when the time is right? Somebody calling in. We shall see when we get there. Sorry to interrupt. No, no, I meant to actually ask you and then it dropped my mic. All right, Donna. Hi, hi. Hi again. So I am reapplying for the appointment to this charter committee when my term expires this July. I've been on the charter committee since 2010 and I think as a city clerk I have a unique skill set to bring. I'm knowledgeable about the city charter and I also believe I can look at the charter from two different angles. As a citizen, I know what works and what doesn't or works for me. And then as a city clerk, I also have the ability to see how it impacts the city on some change. I have been attending the meetings. I have attended too so far on the directive that the council has passed on to the charter committee and the discussion on increasing city counselors. Do we vote for these city counselors by district or ward whatever you want to call them. Are they're at large? And so I can understand from the election standpoint how all that may work and fit in the end results on a number of different ways of cost and confusion for the voters possibly or not. So I think I've been a unique perspective to the committee for that. So I guess that's really short and sweet but that's why I really want to continue with the charter committee and see this current directive from the council through. Thank you very much. Are there any questions? You are a known quantity. Thank you. Is this a thank you? Okay. All right. Well, thank you so much. Thanks. Thank you. Well, we'll sweat this one out, Donna, but. As always, you simplify instead of complicate. You make it a pleasure. All right. Our next committee is the common area for dogs. Nope, we interviewed all those last time. You are correct. Our next one is the DRB. Thank you. So Dan is here. Dan Albrecht, Charles Johnston, Don Filibert, Arvid Dahlstrom and Michael Biamma. We interviewed Michael or Rick last time. All right. We interviewed him. All right, very good. He's here if you want to talk to him again. All right, very good. So Dan, we'll start with you. And thank you for asking to react. That's always a good sign. So yeah, Dan Albrecht, vice chair of the DRB, I don't know how that happened, but. So yeah, I've been in the bottom of the year now. I think I've made it every meeting. I mean, maybe this one. It's been a lot of fun to be on the other side of the table as somebody who's written staff reports before, both for the, in my rollout, Chinning County Regional Planning Committee, Pinchinning for the city and Pinchinning for the town of Shelburne. So yeah, it's been good. It's a good board to work with. Staff is awesome. Marla and Delilah, they just work so hard. Makes our job a lot easier because it's, the LDRs are thick. That's a question for another day. But so anyway, and there are always parts, you know, that obviously some of the wording, you never know, you can write the best you can, but there's always unforeseen circumstances and stuff like that. But we do the best we can to, you know, we do our job, which is to follow what the bylaws say. And all, and within that, there's some wiggle room, but, you know, we're pretty constrained by that. And staff helps us do that by clearly outlining what their analysis shows. And also, you know, there's times when the staff report said, well, you kind of know this way, you can kind of go that way. It's really your choice. So Marla helps keep everything, kind of like I'm doing a job recommendation for Marla. But it really does help our job a lot and it lays it out clearly and all. And yeah, so I enjoy the work and all and the evenings go by relatively quickly and all. So it's, yeah, it's been good. Enjoying all, glad to keep doing it. All right, excellent. Are there any questions? Yes, please. Dan, so I believe that the legislature just passed, if I recall correctly, now the ability for local municipalities to go up to nine members on the DRB without doing a charter change vote and so on. Do you have an opinion? Is seven the right? I just recall hearing about quorum issues and that we are down some members. Do you think nine is something this council should look at or is seven the right number? Nine would make it, well, there's a challenge too because we also, when we're doing our deliberations, you know, we try to have everybody on board. And so you're, you know, most of the time we do it at six o'clock or 630 before the meetings on Tuesday. Nine might complicate it. There's also a question too of unlike a city council or a planning committee, and I'm guessing here, I'm just guessing here, like the DRB is pretty constrained. I mean, you could have, hypothetically, you could do it with three people, you know, if you really wanted to. Whereas the city council or planning commission or another commission has more, is more policy oriented. So then having, you know, a wider range of people, especially as the city grows and our issues become more complicated, we're not some East so-and-so of Vermont or you can just have three people that have lived there for a hundred years or something, run the town. So with the context of the year, you could go to seven, although I don't know if it would really, which is fine and it could make the meetings longer. I don't think decisions would change too much. We have very, I mean, I voted no on one or two proposals just because there's something in there I disagree with, but by and large all the votes are, you know, five, nothing or six, you know, whatever, you know, I don't remember if we got seven now or we got seven, yeah. So you could, but I don't know if it would, you sort of, I guess, it would be the purpose of it. It would be fine. I mean, if more people want to join in, it would, and all, but then there's a thing too if we're trying to give, you know, a chance for members to weigh in. We have, we do have one or two members who were accused relatively frequently, because they're an engineering company, you know, so. You could, you could go bigger. I don't, you know, if you really wanted more people involved, I just don't know if it would make much of a difference on them because we're so constrained by what the LBRs already tell us, so. But I would, if you want to do it, it's fine with me, so. Thank you, Dan. Anybody else question for Dan? Tim does, yep. So do you think that, like you said, you're constrained by the L, you're constrained by the LDRs, but it's nice to have a diverse group of people from different walks of life, right? Those from the technical side, those from not that kind of technical side that offered their perspective. So when there is time to nuance or the opportunity to nuance, you get those suggestions, which is what I found when I was on the DRB, which is I was really thankful for, you know, having a lawyer, an architect, an engineer, somebody who wasn't any of those things, you know. So do you think you have that kind of balance now on the DRB? I don't know what the previous DRBs were like, but we do have a good mix. I mean, we definitely, I'm sort of a generalist planner, you know, just been observing and watching and working in Chinning County for almost 20 years now. And so that's kind of what I, and I bring more of a, maybe more of a, what's the policy solution? Like, okay, we know, we know what the good is in, we can see the end goal that everybody agrees this is a, and the applicant agree, this is the solution. But then the question is, does the LDRs allow us to do that solution? So that's kind of what, that's the mind from my, if there is consensus, you know, but yeah, we've got, I mean, the architect, and then having Stephanie as an engineer is great. And then of course staff makes our job so much easier to and stuff. So. Very good. Yeah. And Mr. Cota. If I may answer the question from Councilor Chittenden as a former DRB member, I think seven is the right number in my opinion. I don't know how former DRB member, Councilor Barrett feels it's just that with recusals enter people out or people have to resign because they're moving on a different part of their life. It's just really hard without that full participation. So seven is the right number if everyone is up and running and working and there's no recusals, but that's just my opinion. And we had to go to five at one point. Yeah. It's harder. Yeah. Is it possible to have like alternates? So a case comes up or a proposal and two people already know that they have to recuse themselves. So then the alternates kick in. It sounds like they'd be pretty consistent members. Sorry. Yeah, please answer. We did have that, Councilor really during a couple of issues which we had recusals and we brought in someone off the bench, Jennifer Smith who did a fantastic job serving as a volunteer on the DRB decided not to reapply but agreed to come back for a case in which there were recusals that made it tough for us to get a quorum. So there is, we have done it. It was an ad hoc thing and not a name position or consistent, but I think that's a great idea, Councilor really. So I think we should consider it if it's a problem. And there's people that are interested in maybe not being in every single meeting but would rise to the occasion when they're needed. Is that something we can do under current statute? I have no idea. I'd want to talk to a lawyer or Jesse Baker, but I see Sue Alnach nodding furiously and she attends a lot of these DRBs. So I think it's worth exploring. Okay. Well, very good. If Sue says that, I'd go. Yeah, we've got Susan Dorsen here. I guess back to Dan since he's still at the lectern maybe. Do you think that would be a problem? I mean, as a board works together, you get to know each other and you almost probably can anticipate, oh, Dan's going to ask that question and Dawn's going to ask this one. Would having alternates be difficult? Not necessarily, and they need to get up to speed on issues and things like that. Alternates might, I mean, you could expand it to nine, but then you've got to get five members in the affirmative. So be careful what you... Oh, I know. Yeah, you know that as well. You guys know open meetings laws, so it's... Yeah, I mean, an alternate thing. I mean, at least this past year, we've been able to make it work, you know? So there haven't been too many things where we had to reschedule lots of meetings, things like that, but I don't know how it'll continue, so. All right. Well, thank you. And I believe that's the conclusion of our questions. So thanks so much, Dan. Thanks very much, appreciate it. Enjoy the rest of your evening. And the next person I have is Charles Johnston. Is he right there? Very good. Well, welcome. And I see that you have served in the past on the DRB. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, I just moved to South Burlington in October from Moncton, Vermont. I served on the DRB there for two years. I started during the pandemics, and so we were virtual and then in person. There was a five-person board, so usually it was only three people. I started out as an alternate with them, and then I transitioned to vice chair and then chair, and then I moved and they made me quit. So. I'm an engineer for Du Bois and King. I work on dams. I'm a professional engineer interested in participating in my local government. So I put down DRB and planning commission, but willing to serve anywhere. Do you have a preference between the two? DRB I think is a little bit more straightforward. You interpret the rules and vote on that where a planning commission has more, I think, policy. So I prefer DRB. Just from a charter. All right, very good. Very good, and it's two different, very different communities. Yeah, things that strike you as how thick are your LDRs in Moncton, for instance. I think the documents that we use there were only like 50 pages long. So it was a lot more up to interpretation. You know, there aren't strict rules there. I mean, there are certain size lots and first cuts and stuff like that, but when you're talking about lighting or stuff like that, it's rarely up to what you feel. So there was a lot more interpretation on that board than I would think probably in South Burlington. And do you ever do projects? I don't know. The dams here are numerous, but any projects here in South Burlington that means you might have to recue yourself? No, I don't have any dam projects in South Burlington for, let's say, municipality. I do work for maybe energy producers in the area. Any questions for Mr. Johnson, please? Just two quick questions. Are you civil or structural engineer? Civil engineer, but I do some structural engineering on the side. And in Moncton, how does the staff work? Do you have someone that handles planning and zoning, someone who handles permits? Is the staff person that does both, how does that work? Yeah, so there is a zoning administrator and they do that work. And then anything that they can't rule on by themselves goes to the DRB. And then we had a clerk on the DRB who happens to be a DRB member and then you had a chair and vice chair and then two other members. And we would write our own decisions and go from there. But the town plan and other planning and zoning decisions. There was a planning commission. It's a separate, okay, good. Great. Any other questions, Mr. Johnson? Yes? Good, great, good. So since you said you're willing to serve anywhere, I do want to just draw to the council's attention that you don't have enough applicants right now for economic development or charter. So you might want to ask the candidate if he would be interested in either of those since he was so generously saying he would serve anywhere. Or pension? Or pension, yes, very exciting. All right, did any of those things jump out at you, Mr. Johnson? I just, I applied for the DRB and planning commission because of my background. But yeah, that's what you're asking for, I guess, yeah. How about, cause the charter committee does not necessarily meet every month. It might start up to meet every month though. It will, okay, very good. No, I knew I was signing up for twice a month for either of those. So if I don't have to meet every month, you know, that's fine, I'm young. I have things I can go do, yeah. All right, and pension or economic development or charter is the constitution, of course, of our city. Charter or economic development, I prefer not to be in pension. It's kind of helpful, you learn things. It's really hurt. You'd be with Mr. Barrett. All right, any other questions for Mr. Johnson? Well, great. Well, I really appreciate you coming forward. So yeah, that shows that you enjoyed your work in LinkedIn. So, all right, good, good taste in the mouth. All right. Don is on the potline. Thank you. So next up then is Don Filibert, who is our current chair. Hello. Hello. Good to see you. How are you, Don? Pardon me, I've been better. I'm actually, I have COVID, so. Oh, dear. With me, with my voice, and I understand chair really is struggling too. So, we'll all get through, but. Oh, well, the fact that you're both present here, even remotely, indicates that there's a good chance you will pull through. So we're definitely pulling for you. And we're, we're committed. Sorry, yeah, it is, it is the time we're in. What leads you to reapply, Don? Well, pardon me. I was appointed by you all three years ago. And, you know, I don't think I knew what I was getting into in terms of the breadth of the LDRs and the amount of time it took, but it's actually kind of grown on me. And I used to look at Matt Coda, who was our former chair, and say, wow, how does he do that? I mean, it's just amazing. And then Matt left and someone else left that moved me up the chain. And actually, I've enjoyed it. We currently have a great board with a diverse group of people with, I mean, we have a civil engineer, we have an attorney, we have an architect, we have a planner, we have a lot of great expertise on the board. I have, I don't have a civil engineering molecule in my body, but I do appreciate community process. I think I bring leadership to the group. I hope people think that. And I'm also very interested in the public's input about projects because I think that it's a complicated issue. And I think many people who feel they may be affected by a project in a contiguous area to them want to fight it. And without the understanding, because who would understand this of the process that the Planning Commission creates the policy and the Development Review Board adjudicates the policy. So I am really committed to trying to help members of the public understand the process and understand that we are listening to them and we hear their concerns. Because sometimes I think people think we just, it's just, we go through the public comment process, but we don't hear their concerns. And we do hear their concerns, but sometimes that helps, but it doesn't necessarily change our decisions. So I hope that's what I bring and I'd like to continue bringing that to the process. Thank you. Are there any questions for Dawn? Just I have one question, Dawn. Is that the authentic Andrew Wyeth painting behind you? Yeah. Yes, it's the original. It's the original. It's the original. Great, where do you live exactly? I'm in for it. Are there locks on the doors? There are, yes. We're all Wyeth fans here. I noticed it too. And I have a dear friend who hates this painting and I love it. And I don't know if you've ever been to the site. I mean, I've been to the site and it's beautiful. It's looking out over the ocean, which you can't see from the painting, but it has real meaning for me. It has for 50 years and it's a print that my mother bought me when I was graduating from college. So it's very special. Nice. There's an interesting history to it. Pardon? There's an interesting history to it. Why he painted that painting? I know. I know. Christina holds it. Yes. Yeah. Any other questions besides her interior decor? Yeah. All right. Well, thank you so much, Dawn, and please feel better and... Thank you. And thank you for letting me present this in front of you and for the opportunity to reapply. I hope you consider me. We have, I think, no reason not to consider you, Dawn. I think that... Thank you. We thank you for your service for the past three years. It is my pleasure. It's a great community to serve. And thank you for your service. Thank you. Thank you. So, yes. Michael Biamma is online. Wonderful. So, Michael, you've heard your name. Hopefully you can turn on your camera. Very good. Welcome. And if you... Hello, if you could tell us in a few sentences or more, what led you to apply for the DRB? We are all ears. Excellent. Well, I've lived in the city of South Burlington for going on five years. I've grown to love it and now work in it as well. And I have a breath of experience in the real estate world, engaged with this DRB and with several other DRBs in my time working in the business. I do feel I have a good amount to offer, both in terms of perspective and energy and enthusiasm, all of which would be directed at serving the interests of the city and the people that live in it. Very good. And you're also applying for the Planning Commission. How would you distinguish between the two? And I see Planning Commission as first on your list. Is that how it stands in your preferences as well? In my mind, yes. I applied for a position on the DRB last year when there was one available. And I think it was my choice at the time, but that's because there wasn't a Planning Commission seat available presently. And I spend a great deal of time in my professional career reviewing land development regulations trying to understand them and how to work within them. And so I think actually in terms of where I might be able to add the most value, it would be on the Planning Commission in terms of setting policy, understanding the implications of that policy and how it's likely to impact the community and potential projects that are before. And do you have any policy points specifically that you would be interested or you see as more urgent than others? Well, obviously affordability is probably the most important topic whenever it was my sustainability limiting environmental impacts, making sure that the projects fit within the community as a whole, holistically and planning is a key part of that. So I don't want to get into the details, but I do think there's opportunity for improvement. Are there any questions for Mr. Biyama? Yes, I'll search it. Michael, good to see you, glad you applied again. There are two incumbents applying for the two DRV positions and one incumbent applying for the one Planning Commission. And of course it's an open seat and it certainly could be that you are considered for it. But I might ask is there, would you be open to economic development, city charter or recon parks as another way to get engaged with the city if Planning Commission and DRV don't materialize for you this time? I would consider economic development. I hadn't previously, but I wasn't aware that the incumbents were applying again but I am interested in economic development and would consider that committee as well. And pension also, I believe, is a possibility. We can speak up if that's something that would be of interest. Pension, the Pension Advisory Committee. I don't know how often those meet and when the days are, but I would consider it. I think it's quarterly, right? You meet quarterly. I have to say that as someone who served on the Pension Advisory Committee slash Channel 17 Board of Trustees, I learned a great deal about investments. So I just wanna put it out there since we've talked about it twice and I feel a hesitance. It's truly, I would say, a plum opportunity to learn about different strategies. Anyway, I just wanna put that out there. I'd like to consider it. Plus you get to work with Councillor Barrett who's apparently a specialist in art. So I would love to know if he knows what's on your wall, but. I have a quick question. Yes, Mr. Barrett. Hi, Michael, this is Tim. So concerning the Development Review Board, do you have any sense as to how often you might have to recuse because I think Rearch is doing the on-logic construction, right? Or working with that, so. That is correct. I am connected and work for technology partners which own and develop the land around technology parks. So there are some remaining lots that we still own, whether we sold those to, and users like on-logic or develop them ourselves, I would definitely recuse myself from on any of those projects. That's all I wanted to know. Helen, do you have any questions? No, no, this is good. I remember the last time. So, and I'm glad you might consider economic development or pension as well because those are important committees as well. Did you nod? Did you nod at pension? Yes, he said he might. I mean, yes, I'm looking to get involved any way I can. I obviously want to be involved in committees where I have expertise and I feel like I'm confident that I can add value and bring something unique to the table. I don't know much about pension but I love to get involved and serve the city any way that I can. You learned about all the different kinds of funds and the world markets. Yeah, really interesting actually. All right, well, thank you very much, Mr. Biama. We're very grateful to you for your interest and your willingness to serve. And I don't know if you're here at the beginning of the meeting but you will hear from our city manager within a week or two. We're gonna. Excellent. Thank you all very much for your time and consideration. Yes, thank you and have a good evening. You too. Thank you. All right. And we're still have about 20 minutes so we're gonna have a scheduled five minute pause. The Economic Development Committee that you've heard us talk about. We have Harris Kennedy Lynch, Jr. as our sole applicant as Harris here tonight. Serini, is this the sole candidate? And Serini. Sorry, yep, yep, you're right, sorry. Yeah, Harris, okay, thank you. Ken, thank you. Well, Mr. Linger Ken, did I say your last name correctly? Lingi, all right. See, I'm a French professor so I would say Lange. So I'll go, I'll have to. All right, well welcome. And if you could tell us what led you to apply to the Economic Development Committee. We'd love to hear. Thank you. I've also applied to the library. That is correct, that is correct. The library is under L and I'm up to my E's. So we're gonna have you though, speak to both, if you would. Okay. Sounds like the Economic Development Committee isn't particularly competitive right now this year, so. But still, so yeah, my name's Ken Lingi. I've lived in South Burlington for almost five years now. And I've got a four and a half-year-old and a two-year-old so I've been pretty busy since moving here. But finally getting some opportunities to get out in the evening a little bit and get more involved in committee work in the community. Before I came to South Burlington, I was the director of a public library in Orange County, Vermont for eight years. So that's partly why I like to serve on the library board. I think I have a lot of experience with libraries and probably some perspectives to share about that. And when I came here, I went to the MBA program at UVM and since I've mostly been working in, for the past three years with the National Coalition for Community Capital on developing innovative strategies on financing, community well-being and wealth-building in various ways. For almost two years of that, I served as the executive director and recently I've stepped down from that role to just serve on the board and to get more involved in Vermont and to get a little break from working and managing a house full of little kids during COVID era. But yeah, so my perspective on economic development and community development more broadly is generally that I think there are opportunities for getting people invested in new and different ways, particularly people, retail investors who have generally not had much of an opportunity to invest in private enterprise for most of the past century really, since the development of securities laws in the 30s. And so that's the work I do in community capital and I think there are ways to apply that here. I mean, Vermont's been innovative in so many different ways in terms of community development and there are a lot of folks here who are doing a line work who I think we could learn from and engage. For instance, with the mall redevelopment, I think there could be some really interesting opportunities to really drive innovative local investment and engagement in other ways too. Very good, thank you very much, very much. And for the library, feel free to tell us what leads you to wish to apply to that board as well. Yeah, sure, I mean, part of that is largely just that I do have so much experience running a library and obviously I did that because I love them. I think they mean a lot to me. I think they mean a lot to our communities. They're a special place for kids, for people from all sorts of demographics. And I had an opportunity there to grow the engagement in the library significantly. I think we maybe doubled or maybe even tripled visitation and circulation in my time there and grew our endowment substantially as well and in my time there I positioned the library to do a major renovation as well. So I mean, obviously here in South Burlington we have a phenomenal library in so many ways. So it's not so much that we need the same things that some of our rural libraries needed a decade ago when I was there, but certainly all that relates to the kind of community building that happens around a public library and the way that a public library can serve as a community center is very important to me. That's what in our rural community, this was in Orange County, the towns of Thompsonman, Corinth and surrounding towns as well when I was where I served as a director. That library served as, you know, was the only inclusive community center in the region. There's not a whole lot else in terms of even private enterprise there. So it was an important place for people to come together and get to know each other. And I think there may be opportunities here at our library to do more of that. I'd like to sort of look for them and tease them out, maybe. Very good, thank you. Other members of our council have questions for Mr. Lingi. Yes, council member? Did you say you were from Thompsonman in Orange County or Corinth? Yeah, Thompsonman and Corinth. The two towns are very entwined, they share a school district and can't get one from parts of one. I have to go through parts of one to get from. No, I know Orange County well, thank you. So I lived in both at different times and the town officially serves both. And it's not a municipal library. It's a 501c3 independent library. So actually, as it has a good endowment, we serve a lot of folks in Newbury, Bradford, Bercher, Orange, you know, all around. Thank you. All right, other questions? Helen, oh yes, please. Just a quick one. How do you like living on Proctor Avenue? Because I used to live on Meadow Road and Mr. Albrecht lives on Proctor as well, but he's gone now. Yeah, he's gone. Well, we love his apple tree. My girls love to pick apples when they're ready. And yeah, no, I love that little neighborhood there. Yeah, it's a really convenient spot. Oh, it's fantastic. People tend to know each other and help each other out. Oh yeah, especially during, this is the upside of COVID oddly, is that we were all, you know, couldn't go many places. And so we, all the folks in the neighborhood tended to, especially those of us with kids and a lot of us with kids in the neighborhood tended to sort of walk around town as they walk around the neighborhood as our main activity for a while. So I really got an opportunity to get to know my neighbors in a way that I might not have otherwise and really enjoying that a lot. And yeah, it turns out I bought the one house and well, one of the few houses in the neighborhood with a pool and I have little kids. And so I'm definitely getting to know the neighbors that way too. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Lots of pool parties in your future. Yeah, probably this Saturday, but, you know, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Well, that's a community service too. So thank you. Any other questions? Helen, did you have a question? Just a comment. I think you have some interesting experience for both of your choices. It's a hard balance for me to think which one is better, a better choice. But is economic development your preference and then library? I think so. Don't tell my library friends that because people assume that I'm so committed to libraries that I wouldn't ever turn anything down to anything with libraries. But yes, I think there are some particularly interesting opportunities in the near future in South Burlington. I'd love to have at least be a part of the conversation about. Yeah, yeah. Great, thank you. And you're familiar with the meeting times and the commitment? Yeah, like I said, I haven't been out in the evening much for a while, but we're getting to that point. The two-year-old is a little more, going to bed a little later. My wife was agreed that this is important, so. Nice, very good. Well, thank you very much for your willingness to serve and you will hear from probably our city manager in one or two weeks. Great, thank you. Thank you. All right, well, we are now on to H, Housing Trust Fund Committee, and we have Larry Kupferman, who's here in person. He is the incumbent and we have one seat. So we won't hold our breath, but we are very grateful to you for your willingness to step up again. And apparently you're doing so well that nobody thought that they needed a pie. So it is the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. Ah, yes. There must not have been room on our line, thank you. You're welcome. But it's great to hear everybody's interest in, and it's great to see so much interest in all the various committees. So the Affordable Housing Trust Fund has not actually met for at least three years, but before that we have participated in two outstanding projects right here on Market Street, and we're the linchpin $50,000 beginning funding for those nonprofits to show that they had public taxpayer money involved in their projects. And I think that's a really important concept. I'm really interested in seeing how the ARPA discussion will go and really appreciate it, Jesse's invitation to participate in the discussion with the Affordable Housing Group in that discussion. I thought that was a really good combination of ideas and talent, thank you for that, that was super. And I'm certainly willing to serve another three years. I should say that it was also that participation in that process helped me get to know the other members of the committee because we just haven't met, but maybe the time will come. I know we had an inquiry, and I think before Kevin left, he had an inquiry from our local developer here about a project that they were doing, but they never actually applied. And I think the discussion really has to do, and I think council will need to consider, particularly the ARPA money, is private sector versus nonprofits and how, who gets to apply. And I know the Housing Trust Fund is nonprofit-driven, is devoted to nonprofits, so should the nonprofits have a plan and is accepted, then fine, we can participate, but I was interested to hear from Summit about their participation in the building of affordable housing, and they didn't seem, they don't seem to have needed Trust Fund consideration in their financing plan, so it's pretty interesting. They would probably differ. I think so, but they didn't, right. They're trying to piece together. Right, it's the same puzzle. I mean, it's a huge list of resources you need to do to make those 20, 25 million dollar deals actually work. Yeah, yeah. Don't forget they had a million dollar line item that was a wish list, right? Yes. Any questions for Larry? Helen, any questions? We're very grateful to you. No, thank you. Great job, Lori, thank you. Thank you. I am gonna look at the pension fund. I actually have a lot of experience with pensions. Should we put your name on that list then? But I have to look at it and I don't, you know. Johnny will be able to go on TV and be a pundit in the interview, you don't see it, and then we'll see, and then it's gonna be seen. I think pensions are a very important feature of municipal, remaining remissable, municipal work, and I will put it on you. The Fed, the Fed calls Tim. What should we do? All right, I'll explore it and I'll be in touch with it. Thank you, thank you all. Thank you. All right, all right, so we are now at the library board and we have several people here on the list of our interviewees tonight. We have five minutes, so we probably won't get to everybody before 8.30. Are we gonna hold that strictly to 8.30 or can we do all of them and take a break or we'll see how it goes. All right, we'll see how it goes. So we have Lee Freeman and Lalonde, Stacy Pape, Holly Painter, Kevin Morgenstien first, Penelope or Penny Tompkins, Harris, again, we already interviewed Ken, Ken Lingey, Lauren Nicole Ballard-Hatch, Timothy Riley, and Linda Bailey, so. Lee, Lee Freeman, if you are online. Okay. Anybody? All right, I don't see anybody either. Okay, Ann, Ann Lalonde, she is here with us in person. Thank you for coming. I'm not working, I don't need to work. I don't need to work. I don't need to work. I don't need to work. I don't need to work. I don't need to work. I don't need to work. I don't need to work. We're the ones between you, we're the ones between you and your break, I'm sorry. Thank you for taking time with everybody. I really appreciate it. I started two minutes late too, so. Okay. The evening's young. So I'm here to apply for the library board. I'm obsessed with the library. It's amazing on a kind of a selfish level. I love to wander the stacks and also take a break from work and look at the library online catalog. And I curate my audio book hold list assiduously on Libby. So I'm a big user of the library, but also it's just, it's an amazing place for the community. The space is terrific. Their meeting spaces, the children's space is great. There's internet access for those who don't have it. And the events are really very wide ranging. There's the cookbook club and concerts and Dungeons and Dragons and you can even borrow a sewing machine. So I'd love to be able to help the library continue to thrive. Great. Very good. And so if you could tell us what you think you could bring. Sure, I could do that. Yes, I'm a lawyer and an author and I write a treatise on trademark law done that for about 20 years. So I have the lawyer analytic skills. You could even maybe write me down for the charter committee too, if you, because I know there are a lot of people applying for the library board, but that's rings all the lawyer bells. I'm a good writer, which is always useful. And yeah, I've had a lot of committee experience, profession, my professional organization and some leadership there. Very nice. Are there other questions for Ann? Yes. Did I hear you correctly, Ann? You can check out a sewing machine at the library. You can. Yes. I did not know that. But you have to bring it back with the Bob and Lodibus with thread. You can't bring it back empty. You can also check out gardening equipment. Yeah. And a pass to some of the parks, right? Pass to some of the parks? Yeah. So I have a question. Yes, please, Tim. How are you at grant writing? We've never done it, but I'm a quick learner. And do you know a one Martin Lalonde that also wrote the song? I do, I do, yes. I'm here to follow in his footsteps in a board of some sort. Well, if you could tell us a little bit about your national novel writing. How much time do you have? I'm going to be very quick. National novel writing month? Yes. November, you write 50,000 words. It's a draft of a novel. I've done it for, this will be the 14th year this November. It's for fun. You're not writing an actual novel. You're writing a novel. You're writing a draft. It's not very good, but it's really fun for those of us who think that kind of thing is fun. It's great. You get to create your own characters and they sometimes don't do what you think they're going to do, which is really weird because you're the one writing the book, but yeah, it's fun. You find the time to do that. It's amazing how much time you have. If you can make the time in November, you think, wait a minute, maybe I have some more time for the rest of my life to do extra things that might be not super productive, but are fun. Oh, I think it's very productive actually. Yeah, I think writing is... What happens to these novels? Anything you want to happen to them. I've printed some up. I'm not gonna give them to you, but... Are they on Amazon? Maybe some are possibly... How many are created in the program? Total. How many are in... If it's national, right? Oh, it's everywhere in the world. Is it tens of thousands of novels that are created? Yeah. That's a lot of reading. Yeah. But it's a wonderful thing. So I don't have questions other than, I'm assuming that you know when the board meets. Yes, I've been to a couple of the meetings. They're great people. Right, and the Economic Development Committee, as well as an evening... Charter. Charter. You said the charter. I have Economic Development Committee on the brain. Charter Committee. We don't have time set up for that yet, right? We don't. We're looking for... I'm super flexible. Yeah. I really appreciate you offering yourself up for that too. Thank you. So I guess without more ado, thank you very much. Can I just ask... Oh, Helen. Yes. And would you do both the charter and the live marriage? Sure. Yes, it sounds great. Okay. I get either the chance to write a constitution. I mean, how could you say no? For a lawyer, no kidding. We're in a hole. I mean, you know, it's, yeah. Right. Great. The only way to put you on the Supreme Court, is to put you on the Supreme Court. All right. All right. All right. Well, very good. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Everybody feeling okay? Or should we take a break? Break. Okay. I heard a break. I'm going to defer to the first. So we're going to take a break and we'll be back in five minutes. And thanks very much for your service and for reapplying. And can you tell us a little bit about what led you to reapply? The library board for four years, three as the vice chair. And by being on the library board, we have done a lot of great work getting with the help of Jennifer Murray, the librarian and the whole staff. They are just amazing. We have a great space, great programs, very enthusiastic staff that are at the ready all of the time, which just gives me more energy. And I really want to make sure the library succeeds in our community because I feel strong libraries bring about strong communities because it takes away from lifelong learning just for us and brings it to the community. So everybody has a chance to find new skills, new opportunities. And I'm just happy to be there. And actually, Patrick Leduc, the current chair would be very disappointed if I didn't reapply because it's my turn to take over as chair. So. All right, all right. Well, very good. Very good. Are there any questions for Stacey? All right, well, I think we are all unanimous in thanking you very much and Patrick then will join us. We're six in thanking you very much for reapplying and enjoy the rest of your evening. Thank you. Thank you. And the next person we have is Halle Painter. I hear she's online. Hello, Halle. Thank you for joining us. Hello. And can you tell us a little bit about why you're applying? Sure. In the interest of time, I'll skip the part about how I love the library because we all love the library. I wanted to just highlight some of the, I guess some of the different perspectives that I think, that I bring, because I bring a lot of different perspectives, which is the reason that I applied. So I teach English at the University of Vermont, both literature and writing, creative writing, research writing. I am also an author. I have two small children. One is two and a half. One is seven. Seven year old, goes to Rick Marcotte. And he has autism. So the way that they, the two of them sort of access the library is specific. And so accessibility is really important to me. I am also queer and non-binary. And so libraries are sort of important to me coming from those communities. Before I moved to Vermont, I lived in Singapore at the time that I was there. They were pulping books at the library that represented families like mine. And so the first year that I moved here and went to the Pride Parade and saw people from the library marching in the parade, that was the thing I remember about that year, about that parade, feeling like Vermont was a good place for my family because of that representation. And I similarly, you know, to write my Libby list and it's got the funding for queer audio books and e-books so that, you know, all of Vermonters can have access to those. So I think those are some of the things that specifically, I mean, in addition to skills, you know, I work at UVM, I'm at every committee. So certainly I know a lot about committee work. I have not done any grant writing, but I was an academic copy editor for 10 years. So I've certainly edited and read a lot of grants. So I think I have a lot of skills, but I also bring some perspectives that I think are important for our community to sort of have at the table. You say you do write grants. I do not write grants. I edit grants. You edit grants, okay. Yes, I was an academic copy editor for 10 years. And so I have edited many grants. I have not written any grants. Okay, but you're familiar. Okay. Are there any questions for Hallie Painter? Anybody? Helen, do you have any questions? So you're, are you an incumbent? I'm trying to remember. No. So are you aware, have you been to some of the meetings and aware of the time? I've not yet been to any meetings. I understand they're Tuesdays at six. Thursdays at six? One of the days with the tea. And one of the current members called me and we had a long chat about it. And she sort of talked me through the different time commitments. And I do have small children, but my wife is very supportive. And I'm free to leave my house at 6 p.m. Great. Okay. Very good. Well, thank you so much for applying. And it's a real pleasure to see fellow UVM-er on the screen here. And we will be in touch within a week or two. We're gonna be discussing probably later tonight, later than anybody would wish to be part of. And, but the decision will be forthcoming and be communicated to everybody within a week or two. So thank you. Great, thank you. Yeah. Have a good evening. All right. And the next person we have is Kevin Morganstein first. And I know that name too. Is Kevin on line? There we go. Oh. And thank you for coming and welcome. And could you tell us a little bit about why you are applying to the library board? Yeah, absolutely. I'll keep my love of the library short as well. But actually, we were just there on Saturday. I've got two little kids, a five-year-old and a nine-year-old and we took out more books, I think, than I could carry. Like it's just an indication of our library usage. But I would say the thing that I bring to the table for this committee is I'm a professional fundraiser at UVM. And so when I was at the library, I saw the big thermometer with the campaign. And so outside of loving the library and actually echoing all the things the other candidates have said, I'm a fundraiser so I can help the library reach their fundraising goals. So whether that's writing grants, I execute more campaigns that I wanna say at UVM. And so this is really second nature to me. So that's, I think, would be my biggest strength, I think, on the committee. I love fundraising. I'm not a lot of people do that and not a lot of people like it. It's the thing that I love. And so I would be happy to bring those skills to the committee. And do you know when the library board meets and all of the commitments that you're signing yourself up for if you're selected? Yep, absolutely. That's not a problem at all. Okay, any questions here on the council? And Helen, do you have any questions? No, I'm just very happy to hear someone who loves to raise money. All right. When you're finished with the library, we could shuffle you over to, you know, an affordable housing trust fund. No, a rec center. Oh, the rec center? Yeah, the rec center. We'll have to raise some money for that too. This is all perfect. Your kids could use that too. Yeah. Absolutely. All right. And are there other committees that you would be interested in? I know we've said that as well as you might know, since you were here probably, we have six positions and there are nine... Yeah, 12 applicants. So are there other positions, such as the recreation and parks committee or the economic development committee or the pension advisory committee or the charter committee that you'd be interested in? Yeah, I'd be happy to be considered for the Recreation and Parks Committee as well, but the library is really my top choice at this point. We got that. All right, very good. Well, thank you so much and enjoy the rest of your evening. Thanks, take care. You too. And the next person is Penelope Tompkins. Penny. The little light is green, is that right? Yeah, okay. So this, by the way, this is the next cookbook club book for July. It's a huge tone. Anyway, trying to find a way for the cookbook. It's called America the Cookbook. Wow. I know, it's a big one. So I guess I have served as a trustee in the library. My term of service, I think it ended last June and I didn't reapply because I've devoted a ton of the time to the library foundation instead. So I just decided that I'd already been doing it for a year on helping the foundation and working on the Aspire campaign. And so just for me, felt like my concentration needed to be on the foundation. I've been doing marketing and fundraising and have a great graphic designer we work with who made that big thermometer out in the hallway. So that's pretty exciting. And I reapplied. I didn't know we have so many people applying. So I'd actually say, get the fundraiser. We need the fundraiser. But one of the reasons I reapplied is that the ongoing role for the foundation for our library, it is there. And the trustees are really the governing board. They are the same governing board. The trustees and the foundation will have the same board. And so that piece for me meant, well, I've been working at the foundation as a volunteer but really, I think I'd like to have a seat at the table of the decision because the trustees is the deciding board. So I don't know if that makes sense to you all but that is one of the reasons I reapplied. And because I still love the library like others do. And I feel like I've been able to give some of service to the library through the foundation in this last year even though I wasn't a trustee. So that's why I reapplied. Yeah, don't know what else to say except that I do participate in the programs. And like others have said, we're very lucky to have such a wonderful building in space and have the staff that we do at the library, they are always super helpful and we are bringing in new programming all the time for the library. And that's also why the fundraising arm needs to stay strong for the future of the library for what we can continue to offer. We have the space, we have more we can do to fill it with more programming and things. And so that's what I hope to help do for the library. So I'm keeping it short and sweet because it's late and I assume you just assume we keep moving. So questions, anybody have questions? Well, you answered the one I've asked all night. Is there another question from here? What's your favorite recipe in that cookbook? Well, I've decided I might try the Peruvian ceviche or I might do the cold poached salmon. So there's actually quite a few in here and this is one of those things that I don't necessarily help choose the books. I'm just one of the members of the group. And when I saw it, I was like, why did they pick up 600 page book? But having seen through it, well, here, I have to say it's really a good cookbook and very interesting. And the cookbook group is there's a bunch of devoted people, it's maybe eight to 10 people that's come pretty regularly every month and it's a wonderful way to share and it's just a little slice of our library. Can I just ask one clarifying question? So you would continue on the foundation and the library board? Would you be a voting member of the board? I was not a voting member of the foundation for the last year because I was a peer volunteer because I wasn't a trustee anymore. So only trustees are on the foundation board? On the board, on the voting board, that's correct. Oh, I see, okay, okay. So, yeah. Okay. And you'll be, well, I don't know if you'd be interested to know this, but a lot of the work that's done for the foundation has been by all volunteers in the past year. Stacey also, so some of the trustees, but a lot of the day-to-day things for the foundation, it was half volunteers and half trustees, so. Good to know. I don't know if that's interesting to you, but. It is, and we give our thanks for everybody, so. I mean, we're all volunteers. Right, right. Oh, sorry, any other questions? Helen, do you have any questions for Penny? No. All right, all right. Thank you, thank you very much and really tremendously. The foundation did outstanding work. We have a lot of people. I think, I think that the number of applicants to this position are a testament to the good work that you did. I think. All right, next person that we will be interviewing is Lauren Nicole Ballard-Hatch. All right, Lauren, if you could turn, there you are. Hello, how are you? I'm good, how are you all? Very good, thank you for joining us. And if you could just explain to us briefly or a little bit more of them briefly, what led you to apply for this position? Okay, great, so. I'm reapplying, actually, you're gonna come back. Yeah, so reapplying, so I think I've been on for two years now. And yeah, it's been a busy two years because obviously it's been the time that we moved into the new space and then mainly what I've been doing is I've been working on the Governance and Nomination Subcommittee. So we've been really busy working with Jennifer and going through and doing all new policies for the library. So we've got all of these new spaces and all of these new amenities for the community and trying to figure out how to best create policies that serve the community and work logically and simply for the library. And it's just been kind of trucking through. How many, yeah, how long of a list is that, Lauren? I don't know, it's been like the past year straight, just kind of, you know, some of them we get done quickly and some of them take like several meetings, which I guess ends up being a few months because we meet once a month, we meet a week and then we have the general meeting in a week and then we'll discuss it and then sometimes we'll bounce it back several times. So yeah, I think we're like, nearly done, but so moving on to new projects. But yeah, so it's been really fun. I also, well, I've got one kid, I've got another one on the way, so I'm about to have two. And it's just been a really nice way to be involved and to help out and I've really enjoyed doing it and wanna keep doing it. Well, congratulations to you. Thanks. Yeah. Are there questions from other members of the council for Lauren or Helen? Just an observation, you know, I'm so glad that you're reapplying to sort of have that continuity over the development of policies and governance because with a great big library and lots of spaces. Well, I mean, there's a lot more to kind of organize and have a process and policies and procedures that the public believer well thought out and really work for the library. So thank you very much. Thank you. God, everyone thinks that's really fun work. So I'm glad you're here. Yeah, thank you. We are, I think unanimous in thanking you. So it's, and it might be a job that you're glad is behind you but you've definitely left your mark. So it must be gratifying to know that you were a part of that foundational moment. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And then I'm sure there'll be lots of details to adhere to in the future now that we've been in the space for a while and doing things. So, yeah. Yeah, so that continuity is important. That's good. Yeah. So thank you. All right, thank you. Enjoy the rest of your evening. All right, thanks. I gotta get my daughter to bed. Yeah, I suppose it's dark outside now. We can't tell. We're looking at the clock. Have a good evening and good sleep. All right, thank you. Good night. Timothy Riley, is he online or he's here in person? Very good. Thank you, Timothy. Welcome. I'm Tim Riley and I'm interested in joining the library board of trustees. Kind of starting in ascending order of importance. I'm a consumer, nonfiction, the magazines, the journals. I want to contribute. I think the success of the library can be tied to many volunteers over many years. And I want to build on that as well. I value lifelong learning and certainly the library can serve as the center of that in our community. Certainly books, yes. But I think the programming that Jennifer's team has brought has just been excellent. We're talking about the sewing club. And if you go around the corner, that's where the sewing machines are. You know, the art programming, the technical training, the music programs, the winter concert series. I think my favorite is the Appie hour for seniors. I really think it speaks an awful lot to what the library can serve as education. My background is in healthcare technology. So I'm very familiar, certainly with the needs of healthcare, the needs of social service organizations. When I look at the committees that are available, of the five are the ones that get my attention are finance, fundraising, and advocacy. And as I mentioned, my background is healthcare technology, social service technology, and those are certainly sectors of our economy that aren't strangers to finance items and fundraising and also advocacy. I have a great fortune of being retired. So I have a great deal of flexibility during the day. I also have the fortune of working 10 to 15 hours a week doing some consulting work as well. So a great flexibility in that regard. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So would I look at this as an opportunity to contribute? I think it's a great fit. I think that, and I think it would be fun. So I appreciate your consideration for joining as a library trustee. Are you a grant writer? I'm not a grant writer. No. Have I had experience helping customers with grants? Have I helped them with fundraising efforts? Yes, but not has the author. Okay, all right. And as you've made, you probably, because you've been here all evening, heard us say there are other committees with openings. Would you be interested in the Economic Development Committee or the Recreation and Parks Committee? The Pension Advisory Committee or the Charter Committee? Any of those speak to you? So I always hesitate to get on a team where there's another Tim. Why? I've always, they're only nice Tims in the world. The Economic Development Committee is one that is of interest to me. That would speak to you. Fabulous. Very good. Any comments or questions from my colleagues here on the council? Helen, you too. Any from you? No, I'm all set. All right. Well, we thank you very much. Great. And thank you, appreciate your time tonight. We appreciate your time tonight. Thank you. You've been here all along. Okay. The next person we have is Linda Bailey and she's here present. How are you, Linda? I am good. Good. And I have to tell you, I am blown away. The library is doing so great. It's calling in all these great people for it. You've got experienced people. You've got a fundraiser, grab him. You've got a writer. I think you've got your board already. The thing that I would bring, if you would like to consider me, is I spent three years running the Vanne Memorial Library in Jeffersonville in my younger days. My youngest daughter took her newborn naps under my desk, so. But I think that you've got some really great people on this. I would love to serve with them and bring my lifelong bookworming-ness and everything else to it. Very good. And besides your love for books, what other things do you think you could bring to the library? My experience from actually running a library, doing what Jennifer does, seeing it from that side of things. How, what it takes to organize programs, bring new things on to the library. Not that it hasn't got enough new things right now, but that side of the experience. Very good. And as you heard me just say to Tim, we have several committees with openings, that you, should I run through the list again, or? No, I think I've got them. Pension, not with a trans- Oh, please. Or suppress. Natural resources. And then natural resources. Yes. Natural resources, just for natural resources, but keep, pension, you would be interested. Okay, I was gonna say, pension, not with a 10-foot pole. No, my husband already serves on the economic board, so probably not that one either. Okay. But Parks and Rec, or the charter boards, would both be interesting. Okay, and the Natural Resources Committee, I was right to point that out to me. Yes. If you could tell us what leads you to apply for the Natural Resources and Conservation Committee? Yes. South Burlington has a lot of beautiful natural resources, which the latest land development regs are, making sure that we keep a lot of open land. Has the cities, the towns around us continue to build up? We're going to keep seeing more animals looking for places to live. And one of the things that seems to me to be a natural thing for this board to want to work on is educational, so that we don't have poor outcomes from wildlife and human interaction. Like we've had, according to the community watch, we've had a black bear that's been around the area lately. I've seen pictures of bobcats from trail cameras. I know we have foxes and other things like that that I've seen. And I think a lot of work needs to be done on education so that the wildlife and the human life get along well. I raised my kids in Jeffersonville for 25 years, and we lived in a home that had miles of forests behind us. My kids can tell you stories of running into the black bears at the Raspberry Patch. We had a probably fisher cat who attacked our hens and turkeys. So I have some lived experience with what you need to do. Great, very good. Are there questions from fellow counselors here? Yes, Matt, no? Okay, Helen, do you have a question? No. Okay, thank you, everyone. Thank you, you likewise have been here all this time. So thank you for your time and your willingness to give more. And next up, we have Michelle Corpus for the Natural Resource Committee, Conservation Committee. She is online. Hi, Michelle, welcome. Hi, thank you so much. Yeah, and if you could tell us briefly or a little more than briefly, what led you to apply? That would be of interest to us. So I'm applying to this one and also the Planning Commission. And I grew up here in South Burlington and have recently returned. I've been back about a year and a half. And I have a background in wildlife biology. I worked as a wildlife biologist for about 20 years in California. And so nature and conservation is very, very close to my heart. And I have a lot of experience in it. When I was in California, I was responsible for writing mitigation measures that put almost 100,000 acres into mitigation lands and perpetuity. And as I'm coming back, I'm looking at like issues with the moths right now that are eating all the trees and just trying to balance, like looking at a lot of construction that's going on and trying to balance the necessity to look out for humans and development while we're also conserving our natural resources that really support our well-being. Are you more interested in the natural resources and conservation committee than the planning commission? Is there a preference? And I can just tell you that there are four positions on the natural resources committee and you are one of four applicants. Oh, well done. Well, in that case. And remember, was it the natural resources that had three openings for three years and one for one year? Or was that on the same commission? That's correct. That is correct. Okay, so I would probably, I'm interested in both of them and I have background in both of them. So working as a wildlife biologist, I also was, I had to present often in front of the planning commission and at the, I'm sorry, my cat just jumped into it. So I experienced in both and I would say that I would like to go where I could be of greatest service. So someone who would, a committee that would need someone with your natural wildlife biologist background, is that what you, or do you bring other skills that you would like to put to the service as well? Well, I can tell you that I'm a very, very good project manager and I really like to collaborate and listen to all opinions and then really help develop the most coalesced path. I would say, I would say, either one of those. And also I understand, so I guess, I'm sorry for stumbling here. Natural resources is near and dear to my heart. And if you really don't have, if you need somebody there, I would be well suited there. And I would also be well suited for the planning commission. And then I know that you have a lot of people and then I know that you have these other opportunities too. Now, can people be on two committees? They can. So is there another committee where you've been talking about that would be of interest to you? Well, you know, like it seems like nobody really kind of wants to be on the... Pension advisory. Pension, right? And then I believe it was you who said that you learned quite a bit there. I'm by no means like have background in anything financial except for taking care of my own finances, which I'm pretty good at. But I mean, I'm most, I guess I would be most, I'm most interested in natural resources on planning commission. And I am very committed to serving the community. Would you be willing, because the pension advisory meets four times per year, would you be willing to do one of the two committees you applied for and pension advisory? I would be interested in that, sure. Nice. That's very kind and generous of you. Thank you. Any questions for Michelle? Yes, Matt. Just a curiosity, Michelle, what county were you working in in California as a wildlife biologist? Oh, I worked throughout the state. So I was a private, I worked in private consulting for many years and then I worked for a large utility. And so I went all the way from the Lost Coast down into the Mojave. That's quite a diversity of ecosystems. Yeah, I was up in the air, I was doing gosshawk surveys and down in the Mojave with Desert Tortoise and, yeah. Yeah, wow. Yeah, I'm sure you follow the news whenever they announce California, right? Me too. I do, but to answer your question, I lived in the Bay Area. I did a lot of my work was in the greater Bay Area. I spent some time in Santa Barbara, I spent some time in Kern County with biologists trying to save the condor and so I know of that struggle. Yeah, yeah. Kern County's a really great area for Kip Fox. Yes, that's right. Very good, other questions? No, I just wanna say that I think the Natural Resources Committee is a really important committee because we've been struggling with trying to codify how we protect that asset in our city and we need experts to guide us along that way. And there are a lot of issues right now. I mean, we've got the Emerald Ashmore problem, we've got the caterpillars munching away on the leaves, I don't know if we can do much about that, but the synergy between the NRC and the planning commission is really important to help guide the planning commission in some of their important decisions, right? So having experts in the NRC, I think, is a real asset. They have a lot on their plate and the subcommittees doing, you know, I think you mentioned a few of the projects but working on their open space plan is gonna take someone with organizational skills. So that's great that you mentioned that. I mean, really good project manager. Like I do, I'm kind of like a, I consider myself like I'm in the helicopter and I see where people are on the ground and then I say, okay, you need to move over here and do this and remember to look at that, I don't know. I just, I spent many years doing that. And yeah, that would be a great skill for that committee. My husband serves currently as the chair on that committee. So I have, yeah, some knowledge of what's needed, so. I would be very happy to be on the natural resource committee. Very nice. Well, as I said, you're one of the four applicants for four positions. So chances are you'll be hearing. Chances are. In an affirmative way from our city manager in one to two weeks and I don't wanna say that's the end of the interview, however there, any other comments or questions? Helen, did you have anything? No, she answered great. Very good. So maybe once a month, I believe it's Wednesday, six to eight. I believe that. The first Wednesday of the month, is that correct? You are correct. Yes. Yeah, you're ready to go. Okay. All right, well, thank you very much and enjoy the rest of what is now the late part of the evenings and hopefully have a good rest of your week. Thank you. Be well into all of you who are recovering from any illness. Here's to a quick and full recovery. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. You too. All right. We are now to the, we're skipping the pension advisory committee, but it looks like we have someone we could pencil in there and we're gonna go to the planning commission. So we are going to see from, let me see here on the list. If we've done everybody, we have Monica, of course. The most patient of the applicants, we keep you. We should have been higher. We can certainly hear. I'm commissioned of planning. Thank you. So I submitted with my application a little write up, which I think you all have because I don't want to otherwise repeat it, but I have been completing now two terms. So you know that I've really appreciated the opportunity to do that. And I'm happy to continue on. You know that I have demonstrated my willingness to work not only within the commission, but also outside of the commission to really work to bring in the community's comments and perspective and make sure that they have a sense of clarity on what we're doing. So I'm available and interested in continuing to do that kind of outreach. I do want to say that, so I'm very interested in continuing. And we do have the plan, the comp plan coming up, which is gonna be a lot of the focus over the next three years. So that would be a lot of what my time would be going into. But I do want to say, and I think this went to Helen and Jesse and to Paul and Jessica that with all of this, I do feel that the commission, the makeup of the commission, I'm listening to the makeup of the DRB as being very diverse and it's, and I feel that the commission has lost some of its diversity with particularly the two people who have left their positions because they've moved or had work, but they had expertise in construction and engineering. And I wanted to point that out because I'm definitely interested. However, I want you to choose the candidate that can make the planning commission the strongest for the city. And if you don't know that you've heard from a candidate that can provide something that I can't yet, I would ask you to not rush the decision. I'm here, I'm ready to serve. You know how dedicated I am, but I do feel that the commission could really benefit from having some more diversity. And if that is not found and you choose me, you know that you know what you get from me, you get it all, I'm in. But I am certainly open to your considering, and if you do have another candidate that you think coming up on ComPlan can really give a more diverse perspective than I would respect your decision to get with that. I just wanna say as someone who has called upon your expertise to explain things to me, especially in advance of the major LDR amendments that were passed in February, you have impressed me as someone who can grasp the intricacies of different formulas and different zoning districts and explain how all of that fits together in a way that has truly helped me as a counselor. So I'm assuming I'm not alone. And I just wanna thank you for that because that having someone who knows, who can digest it and then who can explain it is worth a lot when we as counselors are trying to make sense of very complicated. We've heard about hundreds of pages tonight. We're a big city with a lot of diverse zoning and intricate rules. And I think they're there for a reason because we're a big city with diverse neighborhoods and kind of topography. And so someone who can digest that and say it in layman's terms is very valuable. So you've definitely provided that. Yeah, please, Tim, Tom, sorry. I sometimes pretend to be Tim depending on what people wanna talk to me about. So Monika, I just wanna say I think you're fabulous in the Planning Commission and I really think you should continue and I'm glad that you applied. But I take your diversity concerns seriously and what I would rather shift the conversation towards is the fact that I believe S181 passed and was signed into the law and I think effective July 1st, so city councils and select boards can expand the Planning Commission up to nine members without a charter change. I see the plan as being very important to have those diverse perspectives and also more bodies around the table for subcommittee work and so on. So I really hope that you're fully on board and wanna stay on the Planning Commission and you have my vote. I'll just disclose that now but I would welcome this council to consider additional seats for the Planning Commission on the horizon. Question, yep. Councilor Pro- I'd like to ask Monika if she thinks that's a good idea, a bad idea to expand the number of planning commissioners. I wondered if that would come up while you had a discussion earlier with the DRB. I would say, I mean, I think it's your call. If I am selected, then you know what the makeup is of the Planning Commission and I think given the comp plan work it might not be a bad idea. That said, I don't know that it comes down to numbers normally. I just really feel strongly that the Planning Commission whatever the number really needs to make sure that it has diverse perspectives. I, when I joined one of my, I jokingly say one of my arch nemesis was art. He and I were on a master planning task force together and we kind of were opposites always but I learned so much from him. It's so important and I just feel that that you don't have it right now. As for my perspective on the Planning Commission as much as I would suggest the city have it. So I like the idea for right now with the comp plan but I would ask that you take the time and identify what strengths and weaknesses. In fact, I asked of the Planning Commission that we begin as part of the plan to identify ourselves what we feel as a commission, our strengths and weaknesses are and what we're lacking and where we have maybe a tremendous amount of strength and so what can we do to round that out because if we don't round that out the comp plan to me is not appropriately looking at the best view of the city. So if that answers the question. Can I follow up please? Just to drill down and I appreciate your candor when you're speaking at diversity you're talking about socioeconomic background, geography or personal professional backgrounds. So I mean, it would be wonderful to have more diversity of our makeup on the committee and quite frankly I put in when Jesse was just starting so I don't fault her but I did put in some comments about some things that I think all city boards and commissions could be doing a little bit differently in terms of particularly some gender identity language and that has not come back yet and that was a while ago but I know that there's a bigger conversation happening there so in general I think there's work no matter who a lot of commissions and boards and I'm on another advisory board and the conversation is always how can we make the board more demographically diverse and that's a difficult discussion because only so many people have the time and the capacity to step up. So therefore I do think that it's responsible for a board to acknowledge that and identify what they don't have and talk about very specifically how they can properly represent what they can do about that, just do the best. So but in particular pertaining to the people that the makeup of the board from a perspective and level of experience, professional background and interest level for the city in particular was what I was, I have felt there's been a shift and there's a very strong presence of certain perspective and I miss the other perspective I think it really helped us. So if you did add, I would just again ask you take your time with that and have maybe whatever the path would be but find that balance I don't think it would help. And if again, if you do have another candidate I'm, I like, I love South Burlington too much to just be a position hog, you know, so do. So good luck, Tagg, you're it. I would just suggest that I know the library board works very hard at identifying what their skill sets they need and they do some recruitment. I mean, they go out and talk to people and encourage them to run. And I think I would encourage the planning commission to do as you suggest, Boy, think about what are the, all the different elements that would make for a broad perspective that is reflective of the community and then potentially help by recruiting. I would also put the plug in just from Ted's perspective to expand the commission for the, if nothing more to be able to have effective subcommittees to work on things and not run into it's a quorum issue. But that's another commission members perspective. But I do thank you for your work and how you really do try to bring a fuller perspective to the conversations. I think it's important, Monica. Tim. I just want to say that we were in interim zoning for three years, the next two years because of the pandemic and whatnot. And I think the planning commission had a very large plate and they had a lot to chew on and then they were given a second plate and then one plate was pulled away. But the point is that when the deadline came, you got it done. And I'm really thankful for that and thankful for all the work you put in because it was a large amount of work and it paved the way for some significant changes in our regs and I'm grateful for that. So thank you. Happy to be part of it. Well, you were the grand finale. Oh, okay. Oh, no. What am I missing? Yeah. Oh, okay. Oliver Pearson, Cindy Freeman. I'm interested in the pension thing. If I can learn to boost my own financial, yeah, if you need something. For a pension advisor? Oh. Four times a year. Monica, all right, I'll push you down. I need it too. We all need some help these days. All right. So I'm sorry, excuse me. So Oliver Pearson and Cindy Freeman, both are here for Recreation Park. Excuse me. I don't know if Oliver is here. Cindy. Ah, very good. Please excuse me. I thought we'd already interviewed you, but that was, I guess, back in March or April, I guess. So thank you for coming back. Yeah, so I'll keep this really short. No, you're last. You're gonna talk for now. So the, I've been in the community forever, was brought up here. My kids were, I have a lot of family here. We love the Recreation Parks. We use them a lot. We've used the activities, the sports, the programs. And, you know, from young to old, my mom as well. So I really appreciate everything. I like the night outs. And I noticed that one of the needs is writing and editing, and that is a skillset of mine. And also photography. I think it would be kind of cool if South Burlington got a better Instagram. And I think that that could also allow for a number of, you know, especially in the Recs and parks. There's a lot of areas you could really grow there. So that's it. So go ahead and ask me questions about Recs and Parks. How about Twitter? What's that? How about Twitter too? Twitter? I'm not really good at Twitter, but I could try. I couldn't, yeah, I could figure it out, I think. What's Instagram? What's the difference? I've never gotten into Instagram. It's really a visual platform. And so a lot of people just go there quickly and look at images. Yeah, and then there's a little writing to it. Yeah, I have three Instagrams, so Vermont Rolling Pins, Cindy Freeman Photography, and then CF Flower Prints. So yeah, so I do know a lot about the Instagram world, but Twitter is, I think you're right, that would be really good to get the young kids. And it's a relief to see something nice about people in parks as you're doom scrolling through the rest of the world collapsing, and you see it's bikes and bikes nights, or the food trucks, or you know. That would be really cool. TikTok would really be cool. I'd love to see more tweets either, there aren't enough right now. But maybe first, maybe try to do something like Church Street Marketplace, and then yeah, I mean, I think, I like your idea. You almost need a kid, someone at the high school, that would really be into that. And I think you could find them. I think that wouldn't be too difficult to find. Well, we've made it possible for high schoolers to be members of our committees and boards, and I don't know if we need to do more outreach, because we didn't get any applicants this year. Yeah, yeah, but as you know, we're also looking to put up an indoor recreation center, if you could speak a little bit to perhaps a passion you would have for that kind of work, or? I mean, I wouldn't, yeah, totally a passion for it. I think that it would need a lot of funding, of course. I think Karen's ice rink is a really good representation of having the private sector work with the city and getting that done. And so I think that that is something that could also be worked on. I also think that personally, I don't know about the University Mall, but I would imagine, we've got tons of space there. Why would we have to build another building? Why don't we just put in some of the, you know, indoor recreational center in there, you know? So I just, I think there are a lot of ways of looking at life and figuring it out. They do have a buyer, so. They already bought. They already bought. Yeah, yeah, the 60 million, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, so I think it would be great. Also, someone mentioned at the East-West Crossing event that I went to, they mentioned Sears as being a great place for higher grounds, and I thought, wow, that's kind of cool because when you think of the foot and pedestrian bridge that we want to create, we also want to have something that outside of commuters and recreational, something to drive the kids to as well, like the college kids. You know, you have Trader Joe's, you have, you know, but we don't, well, we have a lot that's getting lost, basically, if you look at Willis Tim Road and you look at things, we're starting to, I think we need to start driving people here. Need some strategy. Yeah, I think so. I think definitely. And I mean, I think we all want a vibrant community and I think that's the best part of the Recs and Parks is that it does bring everyone out and part of the community. So, but just, you know, in terms of the indoor recreational center, I think there's a lot of ways of doing it for less money, probably, if we talked and, you know, worked with a developer for the University Mall. Yeah. Well, thank you. Any other questions? Yes. I'm really glad that you applied for this. I think you're great. And I love the idea of working with the mall, the new acquirers to possibly have a recreation center there, put the post office there, public transportation hub. We need to think malls, that is an indoor downtown and think of malls differently and having it be a municipal center. And so I think that's a great idea to have on this body. So I'm glad to see you applied. Thank you. Any other questions? No? Okay. Thank you very much. You're the grand finale, Cindy. Oh. You heard from Rick at the last meeting. Yeah, we did. Yes. You feel free to approach. We have reached the end though. And it's true that we... I heard my name earlier. And yes, I was here a couple of weeks ago. Yeah. I'd like to add, you know, I heard Monica say about diversity. I'd like to be part of the diversity either the DRB or the planning. But I just wanted to also, after listening, throw in my, throw my hat in the ring for the parks and Rick, I haven't researched that committee at all, but I like the TV show and it's pretty funny. Anyway, that was it. I'll let you get out of your business. Thank you. Well, thank you very much. All right. Any more grand finales? Okay. So, I know Oliver online. I'm sorry. No Oliver online. And no... What happened to Pearson? What's in there? He's not here, unfortunately. He's not here. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Oliver, okay. So that takes us to item number 10, which is making this correction to land development regulation amendment number LDR dash 22 dash zero two. And we are looking at warning a public hearing. And is Paul Connor online for this? Or are you going to do- No, I told him he did not need to stay- Oh right, I was going to say. So this is purely administrative error that it was the content was warned with all the public hearings, but the individual page was not in the packet that you ultimately approved. So it's cleaning that up through the warning of a new public hearing. All right, very good. I move to warn a public hearing on the proposed amendment to article 11B of the land development regulations as part of LDR 22 dash O2 as approved by the planning commission for July 18th, 2022 at 7 p.m. Second. Good. And all in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. That was unanimous. Very good. So we have a date on the 18th with the public. And let's see, turn my page over. Opportunity for the counselors and the public to share information and resources on climate change. And I'm open to having people raise their hands, but I just, I guess we'll say that having conversations with my younger son, it is, he's 21. And I tell him that his generation, you know, needs to speak up and needs to vote and needs to, and he said, we don't have money, right? The people in power are older people that are my age, right? My 50s and above. And I just, I think that's something that, you know, we have to consider too is how to bring these voices forward who have much more at stake than we do and who do not have the power that we do. I think that this is, when I hear applicants come forward who are young who do not have all the experience that some of the other applicants do, I really hope that we can acknowledge that the fact that they hope to have many more decades of life on this planet ahead of them and to pass that on to another generation that that is a unique qualification. So I just wanted to share that with the council and with the public. Every solution that we look at for energy regeneration or generation comes with complications. You know, looking at producing steel and the amount of energy that goes into developing the infrastructure, right? And making what will be life or death potentially decisions. These are ominous decisions that we are facing. And I wholeheartedly agree with you, Tim, that it's nice to hear about bites and bites when we are hearing a lot of grim information and yet I challenge us to keep that focus and we have, I think, people who are counting on us. And so how can we bring those people on board and how can we act in their interest as we make, as we make, I say, very consequential decisions? I don't have anything more to say than that. I am like some of the applicants here as someone who do not have the degrees or the expertise in order to be a source of knowledge, but I do have the will. So, and political will is what we need these days. So, I don't know if there are other comments or yes, please, Tim? Yeah, I just wanted to point out a news item that occurred last week was we, there are some scientific data gathering satellites that are in orbit and they detected the largest plume of methane ever from a Russian mine that was released last week. So I just want to point out that Russia continues to be a pain in the planet's side for other reasons as well. Also, the energy committee has been posting some important information that's developing technologically. There's this competition to generate designs that for heat pumps that work really well in cold, cold weather. And so there is a company that has developed a model that appears to work as intended and they're gonna, I think they're gonna post something about that. Also, another website that came that they've shared is Global Energy Traders. So it tries, it's from the World Resource Council and it tries to measure and show graphs that demonstrate the movement of energy around the world. And that's in flux right now as oil from Russia is being diverted to here and natural gas is being shut off there. And then, and the changes that are trying to be accomplished to have less dependence on oil-based substances versus going to natural or renewable resources, right? So I just wanted to, so if you're on Facebook, check out the energy committee's page because they have a lot of interesting, recent information. Great. I guess the other thing that I had somewhat prepared to speak about tonight is I was raised in a major metropolitan area and got a lot of benefits out of being, living close to a big cultural hub. It's very enriching intellectually and culturally and educationally, a lot of opportunities that come with living in big cities, but there are also a lot of challenges. And when we look at climate change, one of the challenges that big cities are going to be facing, not only sea rise if you're along the coast, but it's also, and Chicago actually, the lake might rise and that would create havoc with the Chicago River. It's food and getting food to people and potentially facing famine. When we see big cities in parts of the world where the heat index is going to make it impossible to be outside longer than a few minutes, hard to imagine how they're going to be farming land in that climate. And so people might say, well, then we need to take them all into the Northern Hemisphere. And as someone who cares very deeply about shared responsibility, I certainly am sensitive to that perspective. And yet we have to think about sustainability and how we will feed all of those people in addition to housing, as I know is one of our priorities. So just keeping on our mental landscapes that we need to house but also to feed. When we were students back in elementary school, we needed food, water, shelter, and then when we live in the North, clothing. Those are the basic needs for human beings to survive. And that temperate climate is going to become harder and harder to find is one of those basic needs as well, but we cannot forget the food and water in addition to the shelter. So we will be truly, I think, having to go back to that very elementary education that we all had. And we live in a very complex technological society and we need to take our gear shift and go down a few shifts, a few gears, to look at the basics. And it's, I think, there are many difficult decisions heading our way. So I just thought I would state that tonight. And turning into a metropolis will be creating problems. I think that's something we have to keep in mind. It's not a solution. It's going to be the big cities that are going to have to find ways to feed all of those populations. And it's already started. A lot of big cities have already begun losing population because it is, they have reached already a breaking point and as food production and the transportation of that food, as we know through supply chain issues with baby formula and tampons, and wheat, we're going to be facing some and corn now, corn prices as we know biofuels are vying for that corn supply. We're going to be making some mighty important decisions here in the future and looking at the basic needs is going to, I think, have to be in front of our, to the front of our minds as we face those big decisions. But we're all here because we want to make those decisions. So that's a positive. And if we all are together, that's positive. And I have to say that having also been on vacation and gotten away a little bit and looked at South Burlington from afar, I feel so good about South Burlington. It's a tremendously caring community and generous community and very giving community. And we have a lot to give and I feel very blessed is the word to be living right here in South Burlington. Anybody like to say anything else? Since Helen asked me to chair, I said, I better think ahead about what I want to say for this moment, because usually Helen is very eloquent at this moment. Nope. Where did you keep moving on? Very good. All right. So we have number 12 reports from counselors on committee assignments. So I think that Helen, you had said that you had attended an energy. No, a task force meeting. Climate. I did. It was really pretty fascinating because the committee talk, it kind of finalized the language and the pathways and the actions that will be shared. So I think that was a really good point in our report. But I think I've mentioned in the past that. The conversation was really about. Requesting with counsel to move forward a little bit more quickly before the entire. Report is, is completed. So I thought I'd like to add to this, but I also want to make a little. Interest to. Put in place as the council to put in place. An ordinance similar to Burlington. Around new construction, having 85% of the. Heating. In new construction be. You know, fossil free. The process to do that, we got a report about the feasibility in the lawyer, basically council for the city basically said, yes, you have the authority to do that, but it's difficult, it's hard and it might require a charter change. And then we talked about how to get a charter change. And I think we ended up with tasking or actually Andrew Chalnut offered to put together a set of, what's the word? When you do like a presentation for the council about why this is important and why it's needed to kind of move forward. So, but it was just a pretty interesting conversation. And so I think the task force is working very well and moving ahead and they are also going to make a bit of a presentation that you'll all hear at the steering committee to try to engage the school department and the school board with so what do they see their role? What could they be doing? What are they doing around climate change and conservation and efficiencies? So you'll get a taste of it Wednesday and then remember when we decided Andrew, and we wanted Andrew to put together this slide deck to review at our next meeting in anticipation of coming before the city council earlier than when the entire report is concluded. Great, great, so more to come soon then. Yeah, GMT, how are we doing? Pretty consequential meeting tomorrow. It's been reported in the news so I can share it here that John Moore, the executive director has tendered his resignation. He's gonna work with GMTA for 60 more days but we're now tasked with finding probably an interim executive director for a year and then a permanent given the difficulty in hiring executive leadership, not just here but everywhere. So if you know of someone who's interested in running the largest public transportation agency in Vermont, let me know. Anything? I'm sorry to hear that. Yeah, me too. They're difficult, this is the, I mean, you haven't been on the board very long and this is what, number two? Yeah, I wasn't around for the first time. Yeah, Tom was there for the first time. Oh, you went through a couple but still just in that's disappointing, I guess, I'm very challenging. Yes. If I may. Yes, please. I just wanna say it's great that he's giving 60 days. I did a copy with John Moore. He's been a great asset to Green Mountain Transit and that's giving the board ample time to find somebody. So there were other transitions that didn't have those 60 days. I hope you appreciate them. Thank you very much. I do. Thank you. So there are other members who have met with committees outside of the council. Okay. Well, thank you, Helen, for giving you, giving your report. Let us continue on with other business. I didn't hear any at the beginning of the meeting. Yes, Tim. Constituent contacted, I think us, so I'll just bring it up that they feel like there should be a left turn arrow signal on market street. We wanted to turn left on to Dorset Street, but that would probably be reserved for possibility when all of those signals are redone. Currently when you go and you sit for a long time because there's just like no, I don't know what it's on with detectors or timers or whatever, but there could be no traffic and you sit forever. Then you get a green light, but it's both directions and the way that roads are misaligned, it's a little confusing. You're not quite sure if someone's gonna come at you or not, so just a consideration for probably next year when they, I don't know when they're gonna start that process of re-engineering and designing all those traffic signals, but if it's a possibility to look at that. The amazing thing is is that the Kimball Avenue and Gregory Drive, Community Drive light, this new signal that was put in last year, when I ride my bicycle from Williston to that left-hand turn lane to go on to Community Drive, I get there and I arrive there and I think that if I'm the only one there that it's never gonna change for me, but there's a camera or some sort of detector device and it's not just a coil on the road. It stops the oncoming traffic and lets me go as a bicycle. I don't have that much metal, but I have some sort of a heat presence, I guess, that there's a detector for that. So I'm really grateful, so I mean, there is a lot of new technology out there for sensing vehicles that are queued up waiting to go and so anyway. I think a similar situation is occurring at Tilly Drive. You know, the lights, because I go up and down 116 a lot and when Tilly isn't, you know, when the offices aren't open, there's very few cars that come through, but you have that development and when a car comes up the hill, the light changes, it senses it and they're able to, they're very short time, but they're able to make a turn onto Heinsberg Road. Otherwise at night it's just blinking yellow and in the north-south direction and red. So they really work pretty well and I think that light seems to be addressing the issues at that corner. So I also got an email from a gal who was very concerned about the Ruth Street cut through. It kind of goes around the intersection of Heinsberg Road and Williston Road and then it's big trucks are using it now and I thought, yeah, that's what she said. I thought she was gonna come tonight, which is what I suggested that she speak at the beginning and then we can get some input from at another meeting. Jesse, you got the letter as well, right? Yeah, I think you forwarded to me. All right, forwarded to you. So maybe at some point you can have, whoever needs to look at it and we can have some discussion because that is another difficult intersection. I guess they all are and so wrong. A lot of traffic. Where's the cut through? Ruth Street. Yeah, it's right behind Gracie's. Oh. Yeah, it kind of slopes around. Oh, is somebody... I feel like it's part of my neighborhood so I ride my bike. Is that on Waze? Are people using Waze to avoid having to wait at the light? Waze leads people into the bar. Waze will send people to the, they just send them up to the notch, probably, too. $2,800? $2,400. $2,500. I've just been there. $2,500. That's just fine. The tow bill. Two other things. Okay. Yes, and Tom. I want to pick up on something, councilor. I'm re-raised at the beginning of the meeting so I think it's still germane and again, not calling for action on it but being Juneteenth, the city of Essex Junction, I think two years ago, recognized it as a city-paid holiday and I know we need to be frugal with the taxpayer dollars but I think it's also relevant to recognize that the federal government recognizes this holiday and next year Juneteenth will be on a Monday and I think our employees would deserve, are very deserving of a day off and also a day of reflection on such an important event. So as one councilor looking a year out ahead, I would welcome a conversation about having the city of South Burlington recognize Juneteenth as a municipal holiday. I have one other item and I don't know if the city manager would be comfortable speaking to it but I did send her a text and I just love an update but the sign, the very important city sign on the corner of Speer in Maine or Route Two or Wilson Road, I don't know which one it is right there but it's a city of South Burlington sign with UVM directors. It's been all banged up for like two months. Do you have any update on that that you'd be willing to offer? The city of Burlington sign. Is it? But it's in our right of way. I know Tom reached out to UVM and the city of Burlington on it. I haven't heard any updates from him since then. So I will follow up on it. Yeah, speaking of, speaking of signs and I know I talked with Holly a little bit about some of the signs have been tagged in the parks and I know that working on it's very disturbing that people are tagging our signs but there's a sign that hasn't been tagged but does look at this repair which is right on Shelburne Road in front of Bartlett Brook and it's a rotary sponsored sign. I don't know if you know the background. I certainly don't know the history. Is there, it could use some TLC. Is it ours? But it's welcome to South Burlington and there's a rotary thing right below it. It just is, there's a, there seems to be a way that and if we need volunteers, I'm happy to volunteer to fix it, but. So it's a city of South Burlington sign with our branding. Welcome to the city of South Burlington with our old branding. And then underneath it says sponsored by rotary, rotary needs at whatever day. So I don't know if it's a rotary sign they're responsible for it. It's a city sign we're responsible for it but either way, a little paint and some scrubbing could make us make the entrance to our city coming from Shelburne look a whole lot better and I'm willing to volunteer or raise whatever to get it done. But every time I drive by it, I'm like, oh, that looks awful. And then on the positive note, answering a question from a constituent. Yes, confirmed by Holly Reese, there will be a Portalette at Schemann. Schemann, I can't pronounce this. Schemansky Park later this week. So relief is in sight for those that need a Portalette while they play tennis. Or not while they play tennis, but. And how about the trees? I saw over $35,000 went to trees. Is that going to happen sometime then that we've paid the bill now that we've signed this? So we are just talking about the ash tree replacement. Yeah, I believe so. That's how I understood the $35,000 charge. That's the FY22 contract that they've already, work they have already done throughout this year that we are completing payment of. And then the entire FY23 contract will be solely on tree replacement as well. So it's paying for work we've already done. Okay, so not future trees. But that have already been planted. Okay, all right. So we have more to come starting July 1st with FY23 and another contract with them. But what I understood is that the trees that are going to be felled have already been. There will be no more ash tree cutting through FY23. Only replanting. Okay, very good. One last thing. So if you're driving down Hinesburg Road, you can't miss the fact that the Sewage Pump House, which is the red brick building at the bend in the road is being transformed. And it's been, it was primed a week ago, Friday. Had a second priming on the following Sunday and then it will receive sketch marks for the images. And then there was some fill work done yesterday. It was Father's Day, so I had to help out. And just to point out that my Wagner sprayer was in the basement for 22 years. I pulled it out and it still worked. So the work is ongoing and it's a real pleasure working right next to the sewage pump building. And if you didn't know, there's a trap door in that building and it drops down like 40 to 50 feet and the fire department often goes in there and they practice repelling. And I feel bad for them for that. I want to get counselor code or counselor Barrett with his Wagner and me and all the other counselors to do some vigilante cleanup of the Pizza Hut too on Shovel Road. So can we just go and paint it and just... I would love to discuss that, but I can't because I think we're involved in a legal situation with the owner of that property. Oh, all right. Also, if you have not seen the art project that's on display at the library that features that building, it's worth going to see. Out here or inside the library? Inside the library up against the boardroom wall. There's an artist who's done a whole place-making exhibit on kind of the in-between spaces in South Burlington and the Pizza Hut is one of them that's highly featured. It's really quite fascinating. All right. Cool, I'll have to visit. Yeah, me too. Hey. All right. Well, that brings us to the end of other business. Now we are going to be, if everybody's agreeable to it, enter executive session for the purposes of considering the applications. I have a motion for that. Very good. I move that the council enter the executive session for the purpose of discussing evaluation and appointment of applicants to the South Burlington City Committees and Boards inviting in Andrew Bullock and Jesse Baker. There a second? Second. Very good. And we will not be returning tonight. That will be at a future date, Sue. So you can go home. I believe we're going to, right, we're going to vote on it. Right, don't go home yet, right. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All right, and moved. We don't adjourn till after. So you are now free to go home.